Reminiscent
by spotdot
Summary: Jean found Marco after they got reincarnated! Yay! But Marco seems a little.. Different to how he used to be. Jean's making it his mission to find the trigger to Marco's memories, and falls in love along the way. But those feelings might never be returned because of Marco's past...
1. Chapter 1

Hypothetically speaking,

When you discover that your best friend from another life who died a disgusting, brutal death now attends the same high school as you and is also on your basket ball team,

What do you do?

Do you sprint up to them in the crowded hallway, crying as you fall into their arms and squeeze the life out of them?

Because I may have done just that.

My tears fell onto his shoulder, creating a damp patch on his yellow t-shirt (I mean yellow? Of course I'd find him if he wore yellow.). My arms were wrapped around his shoulders and although I didn't feel him hugging me back, I could feel his warmth all around me, as though I was enveloped in his personality, his presence, his entire being that was Marco Bodt.

I sniffed and let out a shaky sigh as I pulled back to look at his facial features. Yup, he was still flooded with freckles, he still had a head of black hair, he still had tan coloured skin and best of all, he had both eyes, wide and brown, vibrant and full of life, unlike the last time I'd seen him.

"Marco," I breathed out his name. "You're here, you're really fucking here, oh my god, I missed you so much man." I smiled at him weakly, trying not to cry again as tears dried on my cheeks.

I, Jean Kirschtein-pronounced in the French way which was Jzh-ahn, not "John" or that disgusting American "Gene", had finally reunited with my best friend that I had never met before. Or well, I knew that I had met him previously, in another life.

It all began in middle school. I was playing in the park near my house in the richer part of town, with my friends who were also my neighbours, Ryan and Callum. I heard the sound of cars screeching when a kid with bright green eyes and an obnoxious war cry ran across the road over to us and immediately punched me in the face, sending me flat on my back.

Yes, it was the legendary Eren Jaeger, the idiotic transforming guy.

Except, I didn't know that yet. I punched him back, furious as well as shocked, and it was the best bloody punch I'd ever landed because after my fist made contact with some part of his face, I heard the satisfying sound of a "crack" when I broke his nose.

My friends had to pull us apart, because despite a face full of blood and a broken nose, Eren was still determined to pick a fight with a stranger. Ryan and Callum were scared shitless, but they stayed and held us down until my step mom heard about me being in a fight from some girl who had ran off to tell her.

My mom drove me and Eren to the hospital. We didn't say a word to each other. He held an icepack to his face and I glared out the window at nothing, involved with my own thoughts while my mom told me I'd be paying for his medical bill in French. Why the hell did I already hate this kid so much? I didn't even know him, but he punched me? And I had punched back, as though I'd been preparing for it?

If I was honest, which I usually was, I was a total weakling that couldn't scare a fly.

In the hospital, I stayed by Eren's bed, sulking in the stiff chair while my mom talked to Eren's mom on the phone. Apparently they were in the book club together. The drugs eventually kicked into Jaeger's system and he was well enough to speak.

"Do you remember me, Jean?"

He sounded really nasal, and I hadn't told the guy my name, but he somehow knew it and said it right. That never happened.

"Should I?"

He told me his name, about the life we'd had before this one, and how he'd been having dreams about it for years and that when he'd seen me, he'd just gotten so mad at seeing my "horse face" again. Our previous lives included being in the army, the Survey Corps. A lot of it was about how we trained to fight the Titans, giant human-like monsters that ate the people who had to live inside walls to be safe from them. When he got to that point, I figured the drugs had gone to head and he was spouting nonsense.

"We would always fight, you know. No matter how inappropriate it was. We fought in the dorm, the middle of the street and even in the battlefield. But there was that one time you covered for me to help me escape, and you told me you were counting on me to help everybody. I managed to get Annie, the female titan and I stopped her."

From doing what? Just as I was wondering that, the nurse came in to check Eren's bandages, which were soaked with blood. She changed them silently, delicate pale fingers peeling white cloth away from Eren's nose as he hissed in pain.

She glanced at me, just for a second without really thinking about it, but it was long enough for the colour of her eyes and the overwhelming smell of blood to remind me of everything, everything about that life that Eren had told me about and more. Much, much more.

I must've passed out, because the next thing I knew I was laying on the bed beside Eren's, my mom's voice sounded close, and she was explaining to the nurse that I got dizzy around blood when in the hospital. See what I mean? I was a total weakling. One that passed out around blood, of all things.

I forget myself when I noticed a beautiful, stoic girl with glossy black hair and dark eyes and pale skin sitting beside Eren's bed. I looked her up and down, my mouth was probably open and I could feel heat in my cheeks. I saw a red scarf around her neck, and it felt kind of familiar and that she was glaring at me. With my heart beating around like crazy, I looked at Eren, silently pleading for something, anything about that girl. When he shook his head sadly and gave me a apologetic smile, I knew it meant "It's never going to happen."

The memories played before my eyes like a fast rolling film strip, making me panic and grip onto the sheets around me as I stared blankly at the ceiling then quickly fell asleep on the hospital bed.

From that day onwards, I had dreams about my previous life as a soldier. And sure enough, Eren was there and I saw the things he'd told me about with my own eyes. I saw the black haired girl, Mikasa. The genius blonde, Armin. The tough guy, Reiner. Sasha, the silly, bottomless pit.

Marco, the sweet, charismatic guy who always encouraged me to never give up and that my orders had been right.  
My best friend.

I often dreamt about his smile, his freckles, his words. Hs corpse that leant against the building, half of his body missing, torn off. His ashes that fluttered in the bonfire, soaring up to the sky like a spirit heading towards heaven. In a way, that's probably what it was.

When I woke up from dreams like that, I didn't panic or wake up in a pool of sweat. I just cried. Because Marco had been the one person who had never doubted me and had never deserved a fate like the one he'd had. Because I was a coward who could've just given out the right order, but couldn't do anything about it.

And, regretfully, I still was a coward.

I started to notice how similar my life was to my previous one. After I'd done some research, I found out I'd been reincarnated. So when I saw the name of my high school was St Maria's, I panicked. I didn't want the same thing to happen all over again.

The name of the school's opposing football team was, wait for it; the Titans. The school coach was called Keith, and he was just as strict as he had been before. And even though Eren remembered his past life, he ran head first into the football team, the Survey Scouts, to beat the Titans. For that reason, I made sure to do the opposite of what he did and I avoided that life as much as I could.

I joined the basketball team, with a safe name like Maria's Monsters. I stayed away from people I shouldn't have recognised and been able to name. People like Connie, Berthold, Thomas, Annie and especially Eren. I never fought with him. After that hospital incident I never spoke to him again, but I saw him everywhere in school.

Things stopped being safe after the tryouts for the team. I stared at the call-back list for a full five minutes, only able to see one name.

Marco Bodt.

I didn't know what position he was in for or when he'd even gone for tryouts but after that day, I made it my goddamn mission to find that boy.  
Even if I didn't want things to happen like they had before, where everyone I knew could be killed at any second, I sure as hell wanted my best friend back. I wanted him back very, very badly. Besides, we didn't live in that world any more. We were much safer now. At least, safe enough to not have to worry about being eaten alive 24/7.

So when I found that black haired and freckled boy walking down the hallway, smiling with brilliant white teeth at his friends, I stopped thinking and just moved, running towards him at full speed with my backpack jiggling.

And that brings us to my current situation.

I watched for a sign of recognition, a flicker of remembrance in his eyes, for him to hug me back so that this wouldn't look as gay as it felt and for him to say me name, just anything to show me he remembered me.

He stared at me incredulously, confusion and disgust playing on his expression as I let him go hastily.

"Ah. Oh, um s-sorry, I didn't mean to do that, not like that anyway, um. You, you remember me, right? Marco?"

He glimpsed around him, taking in the surroundings we were in, licking his lips nervously and frowning.

Marco grabbed the scuff of my shirt collar and threw me into the wall as I yelped. I felt the heat of his fingers as he pushed me back against the concrete, his eyes wild and angry as he glared.

"Don't fucking touch me so familiarly, faggot." he spat at me.

He dropped his grip, making me fall down and he stormed off down the hallway. His friends glanced at me nervously, all wearing similar t-shirts to Marco and blue jeans, then they shuffled to catch up to him.

I slumped against the wall, the contents of whatever was in my bag probably crushed, people stared at me, whispering gossip. I didn't see them. I watched with wide eyes as Marco swaggered away, his shoulders hunched angrily.

Clearly, Marco Bodt had seen some changes, drastic changes to his personality.

And that was assuming the guy had even been Marco.

I wasn't really sure of anything now.

The bell rang, and people forgot about me, heading towards their classes.

I'd make him remember. I would make this asshat of a guy that claimed to be Bodt remember me and everyone in our past life. I stood up and stumbled towards my next class, P.E.

Just my luck.


	2. Chapter 2

I changed with my friends, Sam, Connor and James in the nearly empty locker room. They were messing about, throwing their shirts at each other and cursing, not caring if they were late for class like they were little kids. Usually I'd join them, but after the incident with Marco I was completely out of it. Luckily, they hadn't seen or heard about it, so they spoke to me normally.

"Oh yeah, Jean, don't you have class with that German Jaeger kid next?"

Here was Sam; the stereotypical American-looking guy with blonde hair and bright blue eyes cocked his head at me as he closed his locker.

That was exactly why I wasn't looking forward to P.E. It was only three days into term, so I hadn't had my P.E lesson yet, and I'd heard around that Jaeger would be in my class.

"From what I've been hearing, yeah. Sucks to be me."

Already, Eren had earned the reputation of a crazy assed mad man. He was famous, no make that infamous, for his wild attitude and crazy devotion to football so that he could beat the Titans, and of course the blonde boy with the brains and the black haired girl with a stoic air stuck to him like glue. He hadn't even trained yet, let alone had a match against them, so I knew he was all talk and no game.

"Weren't you friends with him in middle school?" James pushed his glasses up his nose, coughing to hide his breaking voice.

Meet, James, the stereotypical nerd, with bushy, mouse brown hair and big, thick rimmed glasses that hid his eyes. Similar to Armin in that he knew pretty much anything, but since he was already in the newspaper club, all his knowledge was that of gossip and rumours.

"Not really, I mean, I only spoke to him one time."

That much was actually true, I'd only spoken to him after I'd broken his nose. To be fair, he had started it. He did.

Connor hummed as he set a foot on the coat and shoe rack, tying his white lace ups. He bounded out the lockers, looking back to wait for Sam and James, who'd be in his next class, since they had muscle training and I was stuck with the indoor games in the gym hall.

Friends like these were safe; the kind you expected to find in a high school like St Maria's. They led normal lives, went out with each other at the weekend to go to the arcade or to get drunk in the other's basement. They talked about girls, sports, how we had too much homework and not enough hot teachers. I liked it like this; because if they were safe, I felt safe and that I was far away from that past life.

Even so, I still had those dreams. There was a lot that I couldn't tell these guys about, like my past life. Because as far as they were concerned, this was the only life we had. I suppose, I could've sought Jaeger out for a heart to heart, to cry on his shoulder about stuff or whatever.

But honestly, I was mostly over it and besides; crying wasn't manly. I just allowed the distance we had between us to stay that way, they were close, having known each other all their lives. I'd only met them three days ago in homeroom. It wasn't a big deal to still have secrets.

I walked through the door and into the hallway, they were already opening the door to the fitness room and I watched as they disappeared. My shoes squeaked in the empty corridor, which had been painted a sickly yellow. Urgh. No more yellow today, please.

Opening the heavy door to the gym hall, I was met with an even brighter colour of yellow on the walls. The linoleum floor had been marked; with coloured lines to separate courts, scuffs from the memory of dirty, fast moving shoes and the occasional cross to indicate positions. I could smell the sweat of previous players, taking it in with a big sigh. I'd be in here for basketball club the next day after school. It was good to get a feel of the place before.

I heard voices, ones I recognised. I froze on my way to the bleachers to grab a bench. The benches that ascended were filled with people lounging around, and by people I mean the people: the ones I'd spent years avoiding. And to top it off, Jaeger was with his bloody tiny clique again, on a bench of their own, like they owned the place.

I'd seen him everywhere in school, despite not talking to him. He certainly hadn't changed much from the last time I saw him swaggering through the hallways some time ago. I distinctly remember thinking whenever I saw him "He should've had the nickname he gave me." He snorted so angrily all the time I was almost genuinely surprised he wasn't a fucking mare in disguise.

With my head stuck in place, and a huge lump in my throat because I was NOT going to cry, I glanced around to the others.

My eyes fell on Connie who sat in the front row, his shaven head practically gleaming like a disco ball in the florescent lighting, he was talking to Sasha who still had brown hair in a pony tail that bobbed as she devoured a snack bar and spoke with her mouth full. My shoulders eased, it was good to see that they were still together. They'd always gotten along well, the goofballs. It was as if I'd never left the training grounds.

I was about to look away to be nostalgic and sappy over the rest when Connie caught my staring and Sasha followed his line of vision. Both their eyes widened when they saw me, their mouths curling at the sides to gave way to an honest grin.

There was no point in hiding from and avoiding them all any more. I had actually really missed everyone, despite having never met them in this life, yet. I forced myself to shuffle towards their row of benches and they ran to meet me halfway.

"Hey." I said, maybe a bit shyly.

Sasha and Connie squealed excitedly and tackled me into a bear hug as they laughed.

"Jean! I missed you so much, man!"

"It's been forever, how are you?!"

They pulled back simultaneously, only now realizing what they were doing. They glanced at each other, their smiles fading nervously.

"Wait, you do remember us, right?"

I sighed and resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"Yeah, I sure do remember. All of you." I let my gaze wander to the benches, recognising faces one by one and all at once.

Connie punched my shoulder.

Hard.

"Dude-what the hell-"

"Don't you "what the hell" me, asshole. Why'd you keep avoiding us? We were seriously worried about you. You know, since we knew you'd be dealing with remembering about Marco…"

When I'd yelped at Connie's punch, I'd gained the entire hall's attention. Some showed faces of relief that I was here, and was acting normally. Others, and I'm not pointing any fingers, glared at me openly. When Connie mentioned Marco, the chattering fell into silence. I felt eyes on me and it prickled my back.

"What's that you're saying about me, baldy?"

I spun around to see Marco standing a few feet behind me, sneering at Connie. His posse of friends was absent and it made his threat seem really empty. Not to mention weak.

"Holy crap Marco, when did you become a douche bag?"

Eren perfectly pinpointed everybody's thoughts as he gaped at Marco stupidly.

Key word: thoughts.

They were in their minds for a reason, Jaeger.

Still ever the idiot, Eren jumped down off his bench and sauntered up to Marco, his eyes full of curiosity, apparently unaware that Marco was trying to appear intimidating as he puffed out his chest slightly. I bit back a chuckle. Marco glowered at Eren.

"Did that Gaylord tell you my name? Hell, I don't even know how that freak even knew my name. Stalker, much?"

He flicked a finger in my direction, not taking his eyes off of Jaeger, which was probably a wise idea. I tried not to flinch at his harsh tone.

I glimpsed back at the rows of benches behind me, and sure enough everyone had their eyebrows raised in shock and looked totally gob smacked. This was supposed to be Marco; the nice guy who'd tried to keep everyone out of trouble and had been too sweet to even think about hurting a fly, the guy who'd shielded me beneath his arms whenever I got overwhelmed in a situation.

Well, I knew for a fine fact that something of that sort wouldn't be happening.

Oh but, I'd make sure it did.

I mean the nice guy Marco thing. Not the shielding me part. Although, I had to admit that had always been pretty comforting.

I felt a tug on my t-shirt, Sasha looked up at me, fear beginning to cloud her eyes over.

"Jean," she whispered. "He… Is that really Marco? He doesn't know about before? He doesn't know about the training and the Titans? How'd he end up like this?"

You know Sasha, that's a marvellous question, a damn good fucking question. Why don't we ask the class to share their thoughts on the subject?

I sighed in irritation, not daring to say anything in case I attracted Marco's attention from Jaeger.

"I don't even know, Potato Girl."

P.E was exclusively taken by either Mr Smith, Miss Ral or Mr Jinn. So everyone was a little surprised when Mr Levi, a physics teacher and dressed in a suit, walked into the scene, duly noting the tension as he clicked his tongue. Jaeger and Marco stopped arguing to look at him. His shoes clacked, echoing in the silent hall. He stood in the middle of the hall, facing away from us as he crossed his arms and spoke as though he was bored.

"When I turn around, I expect to see you off your asses and standing in a straight line behind the red line. Arrange yourselves accordingly to a pattern of your choice. Be it by birth months or by names. I don't really care. And I'll find you do it quietly and orderly. "

Not with that attitude you won't.

A few minutes later, we were arranged according to height, an idea of Ymir's, who stood next to me. On my other side I saw Reiner, still as burly and muscled as ever. Technically, Marco was supposed to be beside me, but when he saw he would be standing next to me, he faked a smile and asked to switch with Reiner. Thankfully Reiner only raised an eyebrow, guessing it was to be expected after what had just happened.

Mr Levi walked to the end of the line, assessing us with a piercing gaze, trying to guess what pattern we'd chosen. When he saw he was implied to be at the short end, I heard a few stifled giggles. He glared at us all.

"You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you all." he fumed.

He stormed over the middle of the line, creating a gap between Mikasa and Eren.

"Two teams. For a game that includes balls. A fuck-tonne of balls. Can anyone guess what we'll be doing today?"

Marco chuckled darkly as he whispered to himself.

"Acting out Horse Face's fantasies."

I clenched my fist, growling at him under my breath until Reiner put a hand on my shoulder to calm me down.

Armin raised a hand. The little know it all.

"Dodgeball, sir."

Mr Levi-no wait, it sounds weird to add "Mr", fuck it, it's Levi- Levi sat in the bleachers.

"Well then, you heard Blondie, get eight balls out from the storage and get into your teams. Anyone caught slacking gets twenty laps around the football field, and that's if you're lucky. Get to it, brats."

I wondered to myself if he remembered us at all, or if he just had an unconscious habit from his past life of calling kids brats.

Later on, and the entire hall was filled with tension, a hungry tension that had internal screaming in everyone's head. Our game was almost finished, our fifth game, that was. We'd moved on from two teams into one massive dodge ball war, where it was every man for himself. The bleachers were filled with my old team mates, all who were on the edge of their seats. Except for a few hipsters. Annie. Hannah. Franz. Marco.

One on one. Me vs. Jaeger. The ultimate showdown.

Now was the chance I'd been waiting for to get back at him. For what, you ask? For being better than me at everything before. For fucking starting a fight before I knew his name. I was in a fucking basket ball team-I knew how to throw a ball across an entire goddamn hall and I would, should it come to it.

We squared our shoulders, circling around, our eyes never leaving the other's ball that was prepared to launch whenever one of us was open.

"Come on you guys! The sexual tension between you two is suffocating!" Thomas laughed in the bleachers, I snapped my head to him for a second.

"Shut-"

A ball hit my face, sending me flying, ass plummeting to the floor. I turned back to Eren with a burning cheek, only to be met with a smug green eyed smirk.

I got up as quickly as I'd been beaten down, sprinting towards Jaeger with the ball I'd just dropped. He glared at me, baring his teeth like an idiot.

"You're going down Jaeger!" I barked.

I tackled him to the floor, both of us rolling over each other and snarling, hissing while the room filled with shouts, some egging us on, others more flustered and worried.

I felt the sensation of warm arms lifting me off of Jaeger from under my armpits, I turned, dreading the sight of Levi with black hair and cold grey eyes.

My legs almost gave way beneath me when I saw Marco sighing in annoyance, carrying me away from Eren, who was being held back by Levi and Armin, Mikasa, glaring at me fiercely from behind.

"M-Marco?" I croaked.

He looked at me, shock registering in his face as he dropped my arms, letting my face hit into the floor. From the floor I could see that he was gasping, wide, brown eyes staring down at calloused hands.

"I don't-I wasn't, I mean, I was just helping the teacher out." his teeth showed as he frowned, but it was too nervous for it to look as animalistic as Jaeger.

I panted a laugh between gasps of breath and let myself lie on the floor where he'd dropped me. Marco walked away, his arms folded crossly.

Progress? Already? I grinned as I watched him avoid my gaze.

Mr Bodt was coming back to me and he didn't even know it.


	3. Chapter 3

"Marco."

"Shut up."

"Mar-mar. Maaaar-maaaaaaar…"

"Shut the fuck up pony boy!"

Making Marco remember our previous lives as soldiers was a priority. But irritating said Marco was apparently a close second. I watched as he turned a dark shade of red at the nickname I gave him, chuckling. Oh yeah; it was a close second all right. Maybe even a personal challenge.

My laughter echoed in the hallway which was decorated with shitty English projects with quotes and stuff about Shakespeare and all the "oh woe is me" tragedies he wrote. We walked passed the classes silently on our way to the infirmary. I still couldn't believe Levi had winked-yes winked-at me when he told Marco to get me an icepack for my face. Sure, it was sore but it wasn't that painful.

Maybe he'd seen that Marco wasn't himself and wanted us to have some time alone. Had he ever even seen us together? Maybe Jaeger had told him. He had been eyeing up the shortie and pissing about, probably to get his attention.

Heh, even so I got to miss out on class so; whatever. I was freezing, still in shorts and t-shirt, as was Marco, but I was able to ignore the numbness that grew on my legs because hey; Marco had dragged my ass out a situation I'd gotten myself into and hadn't realized what he was doing, helping me out was just natural to him-whether he hated me or not. As if to excuse himself of his reactions, he trudged ahead of me to try and avoid me.

Key word: tried.

"No, Marco: you're supposed to say 'Polo'."

I teased him, seeing him rub the back of his head like he did when trying to keep his shit together. Ooh he was getting pissed.

"Why the hell would I? I don't live to please you." He mumbled. What a teenager.

I stopped where I was, completely flabbergasted. (I like that word) I thought every Marco on the entire planet knew the game. He grunted as he looked in my direction, seeing me lagging behind and shuffling faster to create distance. I jogged towards him, my sneakers squeaking in the deserted hallway and walked beside him.

"Let me enlighten you on something, my dear friend. 'Marco Polo'. A game presumably played by Marco's worldwide. A person who is "it" calls out to "Marco" while the other hides and said "Marco" replies from his hiding place: "Polo!", and thus begins the game that is torn between 'hide and seek' and 'tag'. Fun for all ages, best played in pairs."

How I love sarcasm; my tone was drenched in it.

He glanced at me with a pained expression that included raised eyebrows and rolling eyes as if to say "Seriously?". I pouted at his lack of seriousness, not wanting to let it go so easily. I was totally and genuinely upset that he'd never played 'Marco Polo' before.

"You know, we used to play it all the time in our training days. I'm pretty sure we invented it."

His eyebrows dropped, furrowing in confusion.

"I've never even met you before. Jeez, what is your deal? I don't even know your name."

"Yeah. Maybe not in this life. Though that didn't stop Jaeger from punching me in middle school. What a great way to start a "friendship"." I muttered.

He turned his head to look at me, the sweat from our dodge ball game (war) drying on his fringe-wait had he changed his hairstyle? I hadn't even noticed.

"Jaeger punched you? Oh yeah, I did hear he had anger management problems or ADHD, some shit like that."

Of all the things my best friend wanted to talk about, finally treating me like a human, his chosen topic was my sworn enemy? When he remembered me I would NOT be letting this go. We reached the infirmary, a sign on the door telling us the nurse was OUT and gone for the day. We walked in anyway into the white walled room, I opened the dinky little fridge to help myself to an icepack. The smell of disinfectant reminded me of that day with Jaeger.

"If either of those two were true, it'd sure explain a hell load of things. That kid is messed up in the head, that's for sure." I snorted.

I slumped on the pristine bed, ramming the icepack onto my cheek. It still didn't hurt, but this was for show. I needed Marco to talk to me, and so, sympathy card it was. Marco sat by my bed in a plastic grey chair. Suddenly my memory jolted; this really was similar to that day, except I was Jaeger and Marco was me.

"You know what he said afterwards? "I just couldn't control my urge to kill you after I saw your horse face". Ah, but that was after I'd punched the living shit out of him and broke his goddamn nose too, bloody dickhead."

Marco looked like he regretted asking, his attention wavering, his gaze shifting towards the window that showed us the sun was still nowhere near setting. So I pressed on.

"Actually, in the hospital he told me he'd met me before. I'd never seen the douche before in my life, not like I'd want to. Then he started spinning stories, going on about our "past lives"."

That caught Marco's attention.

"Well, that's fucking weird."

"Yeah, I thought so too. I was pretty sure the painkillers were fading him out, making him spout out shit like he was drunk or something. But then the nurse came in and changed his bandages and it, I dunno, I think she triggered my memories because I remembered the colour of her eyes and the smell of blood along with it."

When I was identifying your body for her.

"After that I started having dreams about the stuff Jaeger had told me and things that he hadn't, things only I would know."

"Pfft." he scoffed at me, shaking his head in disbelief. "No way. That's just an over active imagination."  
I hesitated. It was obvious he wasn't going to believe me. But hey, that would be his problem; not mine, and I wanted him to know; so I would.

"You think it's crazy, right? I don't blame you. But then again, how did Jaeger and I know your name? Hell, how did I know everyone's name in our class before I'd even spoken a word to them?" I leaned forward, releasing the icepack from my face.

"Bullshit." There was a nervous edge to his voice, I took my chance.

"Marco, I've never once spoken to you before today, and you still haven't told me your name yourself. There's so many things I know about you that you probably don't know yourself."

"Would you grow up? I'm way too old for that shit and you've obviously cracked your head open on the gym floor."

I shrugged at him, sighing.

"You're just saying that because you don't remember, not yet any way. I bet when your memories are triggered, you'll be way less of an asshole than you are now. You actually used to be really nice, everybody liked you."

"Loads of people like me as it is: nothing new there. And there is nothing for me to remember."

His voice was getting deeper, some teenager thing we do to be intimidating, I guess. I could tell from the edge of his tone that he was getting pissed, as well as the tension in his shoulders. But I'd already dealt with years of Jaeger's hormones and I couldn't care less about assholes.

"Really? Then why'd you grab me off of Jaeger today?"

"That was just-"

"You've done that before, you know. You've saved my backside more times than I can count."

"Yeah, well, that wouldn't be a very difficult number to reach, now, would it?" he sneered, standing up and walking towards the door.

"I'm going to keep telling you things about our past lives, Marco Dean Bodt. Whatever it takes for you to remember me."

Yes, sometimes bluntness can come in useful, like when dealing with pissy teenagers. I saw him flinch as he paused in the doorway, muttering "Creepy ass, faggot stalker."

I chirped back at him "Love you too, man!"

A loud, aggravated groan echoed in the hallway, becoming quieter as he walked away.

"Heh." I said to myself.

I glanced at the clock beside the nurse's desk that was cluttered with paperwork, trinkets and random health files. It was almost time for my last lesson. My fingers were numb, cold from the icepack that was now a melted heap on the bed sheets. I abandoned it and slipped off the bed. I didn't have club until tomorrow, so I could probably just go home and say the nurse sent me back.

I walked down the hallway, heading towards the exit. I tried to put my hands in my pocket, then looking down, I realized I still had my fucking shorts on. My bag was still in the locker room, great. I cursed out loud, refusing to run so I could at least be late for my last class.

"Why did I say "I love you" of all things." I whispered to myself on my way to the locker rooms, not acknowledging the heat I felt in my cheeks.

The next day after school saw my in shorts and t-shirt once again, this time for basketball club in the gym hall. All eyes were on me. Even Marco's.

Especially Marco's.

I couldn't stop grinning.

Moments ago, I'd been given the title "Team Captain", Captain of Maria's Monsters, given to me by Mr Smith-Commander Erwin-himself.  
Oh, but that wasn't all.

I had the delicious pleasure of torturing a certain Bodt to after school, out of club, one on one training. Because, it was a fact that Marco Bodt was actually pretty crap at basketball. Therefore, he needed training. And who better to train him than me, Captain Jean?

My team, comprised of Reiner, Sam and surprisingly enough Connie, who was quick even if he didn't have leverage plus a few others from the year above us. And not forgetting the lovely Marco.

They were staring at me (because I was handsome, so why not) because I'd laughed out loud when Erwin, while looming over me slightly, had told me that I'd be training Marco and the teen himself had shot his eyes to me, his blood boiling in his cheeks at the thought of being stuck with me. The daggers he shot at me sent my stomach flipping. Oh hell yes was I excited now!

"I look forward to working with you guys. And I'll be spanking Marco's ass into shape in no time, just you wait. He'll be scoring us baskets left, right and centre." I grinned at Marco who was visibly livid at my wording, which had been intentionally suggestive. His shoulders tensed and his mouth was barely there as he squeezed it shut. I couldn't take him seriously, not with those freckles. He reminded me of a rabbit.

My team hollered back at me "Yes Captain!"

"It's Jean," I eyed Marco dead on. "Jean Kirstein. At your service, gentlemen. Don't forget that name."

During our training, which involved running a couple of laps and practising our dribbling around cones, the giddiness I'd attained from my promotion to Captain and teasing Marco faded. Only to rise once again once he and I were in the locker room once we'd finished for the day. I'd told him to stay behind afterwards, in front of Erwin so he wouldn't brush me off, so we could "discuss training details".

"Just how badly are you at basketball that you need special attention? Did you use your mafia connections to scare the school board into letting you in?"

I leaned against the lockers a few feet away from him, cocking my head and raising an eyebrow cheekily. Everything in the room was red, the showers, the lockers, even the shoe rack. I was seeing red. (Ha) We'd already changed and I was wearing my jeans and favourite brown hoodie. Marco wore the same yellow shirt as this morning, I hadn't noticed before but it did sort of suit him.

Marco sat on the bench of the coat and shoe rack, furrowing his brows, ignoring my randomness.

"Mr Smith let me in because he said I had potential. I didn't go to tryouts expecting to get in. I only went because my friends wanted me to watch them and he made me show him my "non-existent skills". They didn't even pass. So I think I'm doing good enough as it is."

I scoffed at him. "No, you're definitely going to get better, there is no "good enough". Especially not with your level, apparently, if you need training. I've got the responsibility as Captain to get what's best for the team and if it's not you, then you'll get your ass kicked out the door."

"You think I care if I end up getting kicked off the team?"

"I'll make you care. Plus, you could've chosen not to go today, but you did. That says a lot about you already."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, like what? John?"

I ignored his taunt, folding my arms. "It says you put effort into everything you do, no matter how much you hate it. That kind of attitude'll be good for the team, I know how much a shit Connie can be. So, I'm gonna make sure you reach that "potential" Erwin says you have, because I trust his judgement."

I sauntered over to him, lowering my face down to line up with his.

"And I know your family's Belgian, so don't give me any of that "John" crap, waffle."

He growled at me. "Canadian."

"Yup, but only on your mother's side."

He balled his hands into fists, grinding his teeth. He jolted and yelped when I tapped his nose.

"Don't frown so much, darling. You'll ruin that handsome face of yours with worry lines. Not to mention, a smile better suits that dashing mug of yours." My finger traced the edge of his jaw as I stared him down, daring him to stop me.

He slapped my wrist away, burying his face in his hands.

"Oh my god, you're such a faggot it's actually painful. Why are you so gay?"

"Ditto to you, son. 'Cause we've got a very homosexual date on Saturday at the basketball court. We're going to the one near my house, because I'm going to love making you walk the distance."

I wasn't actually gay. I just loved pissing off a very tease-able, slightly homophobic Marco by flirting with him, which he seemed to hate. A lot.

"Give me your number, Mar-Mar." I slumped next to him on the bench, tempted to put an arm around him to just get to him even more, make him blush harder than he was already. I slung my bag in front of me, unzipping and reaching into the front pocket for my cell.

"I'm not having gay phone sex with you."

I almost dropped my phone, laughing as I turned away from him.

"You're the one that suggested it, not me. You sure you're not just in denial or something?" I sighed as the laughing fit wore off.

"We need to arrange times and places, dumbass. Or do you happen to know where the court I intend to go to is?"

He dived into his jean pocket, fishing out his cell, a smartphone.

"No, I don't fucking know where it is. I'm not some weirdo that knows everything about you. I bet you even know where I live, right stalker?"  
I rolled my eyes, telling him my number as he reluctantly punched the digits in, saving my name under the contact "Horse Face John". (I swear he was as bad as Jaeger)

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm no stalker. Never for someone like you anyway. Besides, things have changed since our previous lives, even if we still live in the same town as before. Actually, no, wait, it just has the same name."

He sent me a message so I could get his number: "Fuck off, asshole".

"Don't start on that bullshit again." he slid his cell back in his pocket.

I saved his name under "The Fake Marco Polo" and sniggered. I held up my phone as he stared at his lap sulkily, saying "Oi" to get his attention. He scowled as he looked up just as I pressed the capture button on my iphone. The flash made him blink and he registered what I'd done.

"Did you just-oh my god you fucking ass, delete that now!" he attempted to snatch it off me. I saved the image, swerving to avoid his grabbing hands.

"Oh yay! Now I have the pleasure of gazing at a Bodt picture night and day! How fun." I shoved the phone in my hoodie pocket, then saw the opportunity as he reached over to find my pocket.

I tickled his ribs, where I knew he was most sensitive and he burst out laughing, the first happy sound I'd heard from my best friend all day. Okay, he did sound a bit angry, cursing in between giggles and he wasn't exactly the guy I remembered. Yeah, but giggles.

Erwin popped his head through the door as I jumped away from Marco, trying to escape a counter attack.

"You guys almost done in here? I kinda want to go home before midnight."

I grabbed Marco's wrist as I pulled him out, he yelled at me in protest. I saluted, my hand on my chest.

"Yeah chief, we're all set to go. Right Mar-Mar?"  
Marco tugged his arm free, making an irritated noise.

"Whatever."

We left the school through the back door by the gym hall, Marco complaining the entire way as to why I had to walk with him.

"Jeez dude, we're just going home, I live this way too, okay? Besides, we're going to be spending a lot more time together so deal with it."

We walked on the path that led to the two main paths students used to get into the school from the back entrance. I stopped at the gate, grinning at him as I waved goodbye.

"I guess I'll see you on Saturday! Remember to check your cell, who knows when I'll text you. Probably during some really inappropriate time when you're eating out your girlfriend."

"That's fucking graphic for a gay man."

"I'm straight. Well, maybe not for you." I rolled my eyes, giving up on the fun of teasing him.

I began to walk home when I heard a low strangled cry from behind. I spun around to see Marco on his knees.

"This isn't happening, you do not live in the same direction as me. No. Fuck off. Go live somewhere else."

I laughed as he stood up, trudging along behind me, clearly not intending to catch up to me.

Walking home with Marco after practice. Three times a week, sometimes four. Oh the things we could discuss. I looked back to see his crestfallen face, still whole and freckled. At least he was showing an expression other than irritation, that was a start, even if it was self pity.

He caught me staring, then glared at me, making my stomach flip.

I turned forward again, letting out a stuttering sigh.

I wasn't gay, I actually was sexually attracted to girls. But for him, his freckles and the smile I'd seen when I'd tickled him…

Okay, maybe a little homo.

A gnome sized one.

With a fishing rod, because they made everything a little better.


	4. Chapter 4

I think it goes without saying, but the first time I dreamt of Marco's death, it was painful.

As in, gasping awake in the middle of the night, eyes squeezed shut with silent tears trickling out, gripping onto the bedcovers in pitch darkness kind of painful.

It had taken me four days to calm down. It didn't help that my dad and step mom were on their honey moon, my step sister being cared for by the neighbours while I stayed in the house alone at thirteen years old.

My eyes itched, threatening to water constantly and there was an uncomfortable lodge in my throat. It took me a day to notice my hands wouldn't stop shaking. Four days of replaying the same discovery in my mind. They were the worst days of my entire life.

I'd had plenty of dreams about Marco before that. I'd gotten to know Marco all over again, in the exact same way as I had done before in my past life.

I remembered the first time we met. I'd been sulking on my bed in the dorm and he walked calmly into the room, introducing himself to everyone with a surprising air of charisma. We'd clicked instantly once he came over to me on my bed, smiling happily, and the reason for my bad mood was forgotten.

We talked about everything about anything until it was time for dinner, then we shared a table and talked some more, people crowding around our table, interested in Marco and I liked the attention I got for the one liners I slipped into the conversation.

I could recall as clear as day the first time I'd broken down in tears in front of him; the stress of training becoming too much, the pressure of wanting to do better than Jaeger and the jealousy I felt towards him overwhelming and the heartbreak of being ignored by Mikasa finally getting to me. It had all been too much for me on top of everything else.

He hugged me without saying a word, and I didn't mind it even though I hated being touched, because he was really warm and soft. He'd crouched by my side as we sat outside the dorms until I fell asleep on his shoulder then he dragged my sorry ass back to bed, like the Freckled Jesus he was.

So in the world of my dreams, Marco Bodt became my best friend all over again while I lived another miserable life called middle school.

The second time I saw his corpse, the first time I dreamt about that day; it hit me much harder than the first time. I'd lost the same person twice and both times he hadn't deserved it, both times I hadn't been able to prevent it.

I couldn't help but feel guilty about it and at the same time I really missed him.

I was almost thankful that the reincarnation of Marco was a dick, because it meant he wasn't going to end up being eaten alive and at the same time, he was still the same person that was my best friend. I had the reassurance that Marco would stay alive, whether I intervened in his life or not. I wouldn't ever pull a "it'd be better if we weren't together because it could happen again" thing because that was impossible, given that the life we lived didn't include man eating giants.

Okay so, maybe he wasn't actually my best friend, If anything, he made it pretty clear that he hated my guts. But I'd find him, I would definitely find my Marco again within that asshole of a jock.

I met with him that Saturday at the court, like we'd planned, and I'd given him directions by text (leaving kisses at the end of my messages, of course. He loved that-not). I'd been given the duty of babysitting my little step sister who skipped in front of me on the broken path, her glossy brown hair swishing around her back, wearing a t-shirt and a skirt, because apparently five year old girls got away with a terrible fashion sense.

The hunched figure of Marco was slouching on an old bench inside the otherwise deserted court which had plastic, green fencing around it, two pretty decent hoops at each side and markings and tar on the ground which had been replenished just last year. Marco had his school bag sitting beside him, and under the navy blue hood of his jumper, I saw that he had headphones on (I reckoned he listened to death metal-teen angst and all being his thing).

I waved to him and he nodded back, putting his head phones into his bag, then pulled out a basketball. (I'd forgotten to bring one….Oops. At least he was prepared.) He threw it to my brunette sister who staggered back a few steps and almost caught it, until it slipped out her hands. He grinned at her from where he sat. He went over to grab it from where it rolled and sat back down, opening his legs out and leaning forward.

"Oh wow! You almost caught it, well done! What's up, Kirstein? Who's the mini Kirstein you've got here?"

Marco tended to be a little two faced, at the best of times. At least he was good with kids, that seemed very Marco-ish. My step sister glared at him when he said "mini", even though I knew he was just teasing. Looks like I knew a lot about him even if he was different from before.

"It's Miss Claudia Kirstein-Gray to you, spotty face!"

He raised his eyebrows in surprise at Claudia's sass (my parents had THE worst influence on this kid), putting his hands up in defence, mumbling at how his freckles weren't acne, like my face was covered in (yeah, right). I decided to introduce them before they tore each other's throats out.

"Dee, this is Marco. He's the one who can't play basketball but is still on the team. You can wait around where he's sitting while we practice."

He lowered his eyelids at me as if to say "so not funny" as Claudia reluctantly went to sit beside him, sulking dramatically.

"Sorry man, I got stuck with babysitting duties since the neighbours were out and mom and dad had work today." I shrugged my shoulders at him. "Claudia's my step sister, her mom's been married to my dad for two years now."

Claudia turned to face him with a scowl that was similar to his from a few days ago.

"My daddy's a lawyer." she told him pompously. She meant my dad, since her biological dad had died of a stroke when she was two.

She acted like her mom a lot, who was damn right snobby and self important, and boy, did it show.

Marco smiled at her, his freckles stretching across his cheeks. "Oh yeah? Well, my dad's a doctor. They get way more money than lawyers."

Was he seriously competing with a five year old over their parents' jobs? Maybe Claudia had finally met her match.

"It's about the baskets and the balls today you guys, so stop bickering."

Marco took the hint, rolling his eyes as he made his way to stand beside me, dribbling the ball along the way. I'd come at least a little prepared, wearing basketball shorts and shoes, plus a vest since we'd eventually be sweating buckets. Marco was in a similar attire, but despite the unseasonably warm weather, there were goose-bumps visible on his arms as he threw his jumper onto the bench.

"Let's warm up first; we'll do laps around the court."

We jogged around the court a few times. Claudia sat on the bench with her mom's phone ( I had chalk and Lego when I was her age!) and sighed in boredom every few seconds. After we'd done, he was already wheezing and I hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Wow Marco. Who knew you'd be so unfit? Maybe this training will stop you from getting diabetes."

"Shut up, pony boy." he said, which made Claudia giggle quite openly.

"Oh would you stop saying that? You're making me sound like some kind of Brony."

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you were."

I shoved him as he sniggered, then I grabbed the ball from the sideline where we'd left it and threw it at him.

"For that; you're not getting a break. Let's try a game first so I can see just how bad you are at this." He groaned as he moved to one side of the court and I mirrored him, bouncing the ball as I walked.

Oh my god. I knew he was bad enough to need training but I was beginning to doubt any sort of judgement Erwin had seen in this boy.

He tried doggy guarding me-an illegal move, tried snatching the ball from my hands and failed several times. When he finally got the ball and shot it, he missed the basket, not even hitting the board and it landed outside the court, so I made him run out and get it.

When he returned with the orange ball, I could tell he wished that looks could kill. With a menacing glare he dribbled it to the middle of the court then tried to race past me, only to have me stepping backwards in front of him and tapping it in front of me and bounced it away. He groaned audibly, getting angrier, redder and sweatier by the minute. Hmmm. He needed a better motivation than just getting back at me.

"What team?!" I yelled at Claudia, who instantly stood up and shouted back "Wildcats!" then we both sang our own version of "Gotta get your head in the game", her version being the word perfect one, her voice high pitched and nasal.

I panted and laughed between lyrics, and sure enough Marco was riled up and he managed to snatch the ball from me, dodging me as he ran three feet away from the basket and shot, finally scoring a basket. He pounded a fist in the air, chanting out "Champion, champion!" as he chased after the rolling ball.

"I'm sorry, you mean the champion with two points compared to my forty two?"

I had a nice view of his ass as he bent over to pick up the ball. Hmmm. Legs. Tan coloured and drenched in freckles, just like his face. Wait, that was gay. Stop it Jean. It's just legs, you have them too. I looked away until he spoke.

"Hey, shut up! I'm just glad I managed to score a basket at all!" he blushed as he yelled.

He jogged over to his bag, his legs shaking as he collapsed onto the bench, ignoring Claudia's incessant singing as he fumbled through his bag for his phone. He clicked the lock button, seemingly to check the time.

"Shit, it's this late already? Right, um, I need to go. Text me for when the next practice is, alright? I'll see you at club next week, sadly." he wheezed at me.

He wiped the sweat from his brow with a bare wrist, stuffing his jumper and the ball into his bag as he shrugged it over his shoulders and ran out the court.

"Come on Claudia, let's follow him." I moved towards the gate. She stopped singing.

"Why? Where's Marco going?"

"I guess he's going home. I want to see where he lives. I deserve to since he ditched training with half an hour left still to go."

She took my hand in hers subconsciously and rolled her eyes.

"That's stupid, he obviously doesn't like you. He won't want you to be at his house."

"That's the point."

We tailed Marco through the quiet street, passing my house along the way. He stopped running and we had to slow down, I kept shushing Claudia who didn't seem to understand the concept of spying.

"Claudia, pretend you're a mouse." She squeaked loudly in reply. I clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Urgh, just never mind. Keep quiet, okay? Otherwise Marco's gonna hear us and I don't want that because he'll be mad."

Actually, I did quite like making him mad. His expressions were always priceless. We passed expensive looking houses, then eventually we were out the housing estate and heading towards the town centre.

"I guess he's not going home then. He just wanted out of training to go shopping." I grumbled.

Claudia caught eye of the toy shop, almost making me yelp as she tugged my shirt.

"I want to go in!"

"No, Dee, not now. Maybe on our way back." I looked ahead for Marco, who was closing in on a specific shop.

I pulled her hand away from my shirt, clasping it in my own as she shrieked at me, demanding to go inside, pulling me backwards.

"Jeez Claudia, I don't even have any money on me! Neither do you!"

That eventually quietened her. Passers-by nodded at me, apparently impressed by how I handled my little sister's screaming fit. Marco disappeared from view as he went inside one of the shops. When we reached the shop, I waited for a few seconds, glancing at the interior of the shop before following him through the door.

When we went inside, Marco was nowhere to be found. Just as well, because I sure as hell didn't want him to see me with Claudia in the cheesy family restaurant called "Danny's Diner" with a picture of a winking cartoon tiger beside the name sign.

There were kids EVERYWHERE. Hurling foam balls inside a ten foot ball-pit prison. Chasing each other around the cushioned and caged climbing frame and screaming. Throwing tantrums at tables when they weren't allowed desert, their parents embarrassed as they tried to quieten them. Red faced babies bawled in messy high chairs with unrecognizable gloop all over their faces and clothes, their mouth open showing gums that were bright pink and toothless.

Claudia shrieked in excitement, hugging my side and yelling her thanks, that I was the "best-est step brother ever" as she left my side to go in and play.

In a daze I wandered over to the bar area that was a non kid zone, just as a person in a tiger suit came out from the door from behind it. They must've not seen me, because they ignored me and went out into the centre of the madness to let out a loud, fake roar. They were immediately bombarded by children that intended to either climb onto the poor soul or rip their striped tail off.

They laughed, a low, rich sound from within the costume, and patted them on the head with a large paw, swinging their arms by their sides as they made the children follow behind them to a table that was littered with crayons and scribbled on paper and sat down in the biggest chair, pretending to feel faint. The kids ate it up, laughing in with shrieks mixed in as they watched the melodramatic tiger.

I jumped when someone from behind the bar said "excuse me" and I turned to face them. It was Armin, of all people.

"Hey man, long time no see!" he grinned at me, leaning over the bar so I could hear him. He wore a red cap with the name of the diner with his hair tied up and sticking out the hole at the back. His t-shirt had a printed picture of the black and orange winking tiger, apparently the same one as the thing currently being child-tortured beside the climbing frame.

"Yeah, it's been a while." I sat down on the twisting bar stool.

"What brings you here? You're a little young to have a kid, aren't you? You're not even old enough to drink." he raised a blonde eyebrow.

"Of course I don't have a fucking kid, you would've seen my on my new show "teen dad" if I had one." he looked a little taken aback at my sarcasm, which had come out harsher than I'd intended.

"I'm, um, I'm here with my little sister."

"Really?! I didn't know you had a sister. Which one is she?" He nodded excitedly at the group of kids swarming the tiger person.

I turned around to face them, pointing at Claudia.

"She's the one with brown hair, the my little pony t-shirt and the weird nose."

He tilted his head when I spun back around to face him.

"She doesn't look much like you."

"She's my step sister." He said "oh" and asked what he could get me.

Eventually, I called Claudia over to a table where I sat with two chocolate ice creams in patterned glass bowls. I still hadn't seen Marco, the tiger had disappeared a few minutes ago and Armin hadn't mentioned him when we spoken at the bar.

I scanned the room for the freckled boy. Maybe he'd gone to the back? Maybe I'd gone into the wrong place? I shook my head as I scooped up a bit of ice cream, almost gagging at the terrible flavour.

Dee raced over when she saw I had ice cream, telling me that this was best day of her entire life and babbled on about how her friends would probably want to go here for a birthday party and stuffed the ice cream into her mouth, her spoon shovelling at lightning speed. I let my mind wander, pretending to listen to Claudia, nodding and saying "oh really?" every now and then.

A black haired man with a cap and shirt that matched Armin's began wiping the abandoned, littered tables with a white cloth. Interested, I called over to him to tell him I was finished with my bowl. He turned to face me and his jaw dropped. He stormed over to me, his face turbulent.

"Jean?! What the hell are you doing here?" Marco whispered in a shout. Found him.

I pointed to my ice cream bowl innocently.

"Got hungry." I told him. I cocked my head, thinking for a second.

"Marco, are you the tiger mascot guy?"

His face flushed scarlet. His eyes narrowed and he pointed a sharp finger at me.

He threatened me. "If you tell anyone, anyone, then you'll be known as a faggot stalker around the school."

"I'm not known as that already? Huh, I guess gossip doesn't spread around so fast in our school then." I handed my bowl to him with a smile.

"I hate you and your awful two toned hair. You are so dead if you tell anyone."

I patted my hair in defense.

"I'll have you know this is natural. I'll prove it to you in the summer, my roots get lighter. Hell, my old man has the same hair as me and he's way too proud to touch dye."

He snorted, rolling his eyes as he took the bowl. "Looks like you take after him in more ways than one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I frowned at him.

He exhaled sharply in annoyance. "It doesn't matter. Look, just get out of here a.s.a.p and don't tell anyone about this."

I rested my chin on my hand as I playfully pondered this.

"I don't know man, I might have to tell Reiner about your costume; I heard he's into that sort of kinky stuff with Bertholdt. Hmmm, I think after seeing your awesome performance today, maybe I am too. I'd yank that tail of yours, any day." I waggled my eyebrows as I grinned at him.

He opened his mouth, mortified as he glanced at Claudia who was completely oblivious to our conversation. He hid his face in his free hand, groaning about how gay I was. I bit back a laugh as I leaned back into my chair.

I was definitely coming here again.


	5. Chapter 5

Teasing Marco was probably the highlight of the entirety of my high school life, but then again: high school. I did actually attend a high school, so naturally that meant I had to go to crappy classes like every other teenager.

Oh, a join a group of friends. A clique, so to speak.

Remember Sam, Connor and James?

Wow.

And I thought Jaeger was an asshole.

Who the hell shoves a x-box controller up someone's ass just because they were complaining about fucking up on a test that he was genuinely upset about failing? Connor was surprisingly a scary dude. Like with psychotic, murderous intent. That ended our week long friendship very quickly.

Thankfully, I met new people in my homeroom. Although I couldn't get a damn break because the trio had a thing for throwing sneers my way and tried to spread rumours about me fucking a teacher.

After two days of that, let's just say they were now really afraid of paper.

I found myself sitting next to Connie, Sasha, Reiner and Bertholdt at lunch more often than not. I'm not even sure how I ended up in that situation, and I kind of had to let go of my fear of keeping in touch with my old life, because the past was in the past and things were different now. Besides, I felt way safer around these guys than those freaks.

I was so used to being with the trainees in my dreams, so I guessed it was just normal to feel close to them. By the looks of it, they didn't really need anyone else except our P.E class, and after that class last week everybody seemed really to fit together again without question.

They considered people not from our previous lives as "non playing characters", like from that "Angel Beats" anime Sasha cried over when she gawking into space. After the controller incident and all the times they'd insulted my temper, I could understand why they avoided people like them. We were basically from a different world.

Monday, on the second week of term. Connie decided to prank Sasha.

We sat at our usual bench/table in the courtyard (is that what it's called? To me, it's just a heap of half dead grass, a fuck tonne of trash and some trees popping out at random.) The sun was out, and it was freezing, despite summer only having just ended. By the looks of it, we were the only people crazy enough to be outside.

Sasha entrusted me with her bag while she went inside the cafeteria to find the vending machine, to get yet another snack bar to last her through the movie in English lit, apparently.

Yeah I couldn't really argue with her there. I usually passed out from boredom when watching people kill each other while it was symbolic for cheese and redemption or some shit like that. I don't fucking know, it's just stupid. All the deeper meaning crap can go find itself a bathroom and politely dunk its own face in the toilet.

As soon as she was out of view, Connie snatched the bright purple backpack out of my hands and tipped out the contents onto the worn out wooden table with a heavy thud, the papers rustled as they scattered slightly over the table. He proudly hummed "Eye of the Tiger" under his breath as he pressed the bag inside out.

Explanation: he was "ninja-ing" her bag. The art of turning a person's bag inside out and replacing everything to make it look as normal as possible. He replaced her papers and books, (and about half a dozen random piles of shit. Who with any sense of sanity keeps wrappers?!) and zipped the bag as far as the inside out zip would allow then shoved it back onto Sasha's place.

Reiner ignored Connie, muttering something about her going ape-shit that he'd touched her secret stash of food and running fingers through his blonde cut. Connie just shrugged and grinned as he rested his arms on the table, still humming. Bertholdt looked like a kid stealing candy from a store with the way he was looking around shiftily. Hopefully he wouldn't call Connie out. I was looking forward to Sasha smacking Connie like she normally did, because bickering was always fun to watch.

I took my phone out from my bag that was beside my feet, opening to lock screen and going straight for the photo gallery. I find the picture I was looking for: Marco looking at me grumpily, his square jaw tensed in annoyance, dark eyes shooting daggers at me and a down-turned mouth that was probably hiding curses.

I sighed, staring at the photo for a few seconds before putting it back into my bag. I slumped onto the table. Why did he have to be so grumpy around me? Sure, I was annoying but I bet he was nice to his friends.

"You alright Jean?" Bertholdt looked at me with concerned eyes.

"Yeah. Just waiting for a text that's never going to come, I guess." I chuckled at myself, because I'm a total idiot.

I'd met Marco on the third day of term. Got his number on the fourth. The day after I went to a basketball practice with him and found out where he worked. I didn't know anything about Marco, and I'd thought I'd known every inch of his mind. But this time… It really was like meeting a new person. I didn't really know how to go about getting to know him while I reminded him of the things he should've already known. I'd never really been a people person. Making people like me was a difficult task. It didn't make it easier that he hated me. Although to be fair I was an annoying shit.

Sooner than we'd expected, Sasha came bounding back towards our table, sure enough clutching two more snack bars than she'd claim she'd be getting. She set them on the table, moving her bag onto the floor, thanking me for taking care of it with a bright smile. Connie seemed about to fit himself up, the way he was holding his breath so he wouldn't burst out laughing and his face turning red. He looked a bit swollen in the cheeks, like he'd been stung there by a swarm of bees. Instead of giving himself away, or ending up doing so, he blurted out:

"So, Reiner, Bertholdt. Gay sex. The epic frick-frack of the homos. How's that jizz go into play?"

Bertl naturally turned a dark shade of red, hiding his mouth and cheeks under an inch thick scarf that kind of reminded me of Mikasa, except dear old Bert often used it to wipe away the gallons of sweat he poured out during embarrassing times, like now. Reiner just looked at Connie, shaking his head while frowning. You know the "what the fuck Connie" face.

Yes; there was a look especially dedicated to questioning Connie and his stupidity.

Sasha still hadn't noticed her bag's state and she was halfway through her second bar, spluttering at Connie's randomness in a fit of giggles. He picked up his drink and took a bashful sip, only now realizing what he'd said and not daring to speak up again. The dark liquid shot up the straw. Then it leaked at the sides and made Connie swear as he got juice over his t-shirt.

"What-what the hell?! Ah, shit! This fuckin' shirt was a present, god damn it!" He hissed as he moved the drink away and put it back on the table.

"Yeah well, it just goes to show I'm forever one step ahead of you."

Everyone turned to Sasha who grinned with seeds in her teeth as she bashed Connie with her flipped bag. He shouted that he declared a prank war. God only knows what could happen now. I actually had a bad feeling about this.

I left with Connie to go to the bathroom so he could wipe down his shirt. I didn't see what the big deal was, it was just a stain. He sulked as we walked through the hallways, with me hiding him behind me.

"Don't you have a gym shirt?"

"Ew, I'm not doing that. A gym shirt is for gym, dumbass. I don't wanna sweat onto a shirt I'm gonna have to wear for the rest of the day." he pulled a face at the thought of it.

Fair enough, I suppose. But if that stain didn't come out, he'd looked like he'd pissed himself since it reached his pelvis. The reason why I was hiding him. Okay so maybe it was a bit of an issue then.

We reached the bathrooms that were empty and as grotty as ever with mouldy paper towels stuffed in the sinks and awful sharpie graffiti scribbled on the walls. I avoided a suspicious looking puddle on my way inside. I sat on the edge of the sink as he took his top off and rinsed it under the faucet.

"So how's it going with Marco? Does he remember yet?" he glanced up at me as the water ran over the shirt.

Only two days had passed since I'd found out Marco's laughable excuse of a job and I hadn't had the chance to go back again. But I planned to, later on today, whether my sister was there or not. I'd managed to get his shift rota from Armin, since he knew I wanted to… I don't know, trigger Marco's memory? Something like that. He wanted to help me bring him back, saying he missed hanging out with him.

So now, I could bug Marco whenever I wanted: on the phone, during required P.E two times a week, at club three times a week, plus an hour's training at the weekend and at his work. I often texted him random memories, to which he always replied "Bullshit."

Earlier on I'd been waiting to see if he'd replied to my question of "Do you remember anything yet?" I'd probably never see the reply to that text nay time soon. At least, not the one I wanted.

"Nope, he remembers jack shit. Keeps calling b.s on whatever I tell him, too. I make sure to nag him about it, though. He's beyond sick of me by now."

Connie dried his my chemical romance t-shirt under the hand dryer, pushing the button with his pinkie.

"Seriously? That sucks ass man. I know you and him were, like, tight and whatever."

"And I identified his dead body."

Connie winced as he looked away from me, apparently he'd been avoiding that topic. But I didn't see the point of not talking about it if I didn't feel bad about it any more. Not so much nowadays, anyway.

"I'm not really sure if he'd remember that part, would he? I definitely wouldn't want him having to see himself be eaten again." I looked at him with a sense worry beginning to creep up on me.

I shuddered at the thought. I actually hadn't thought of that before. And that is the downside of a blunt personality. You kind of forget other people have feelings and then you go about doing stupid stuff without realizing you're hurting other people.

"Nah, man. I reckon he'd want to remember all the stuff before, at least. You guys had a lot of good memories together, right? And you've been telling him stuff so… He'd be crazy if he didn't want to at least know what the hell you were on about."

I nodded, sighing as Connie slipped on his shirt. It looked pretty wet to me, but then again; I'm a virgin, what would I know?

We left the bathroom, on our way to the bench again when I heard voices echoing down the hallway, one sounded like Marco's. I cocked a head at Connie, indicating that we go and see who was speaking. He frowned but still followed me as I led him down the hallway.

It turned out to be Marco, the man himself, and he was with his lackeys. They were… not exactly the sort of people who'd expect a jock kind of person like Marco to be around. To put it simply; they were the kind of people you'd find in the model train club and played video games all weekend. Out of all them, it wasn't mistakable that Marco was the best looking out of them. It really was just a fact, he had the least acne and clean looking hair. Don't even get me started on their clothes.

They were inside one of the stairwells, with all the lackeys crowding around Marco as though they were worshipping him while standing up. I could see from their eager eyes and too bright smiles that they were really trying to impress him. Pfft, as if that asshat deserved that kind of special treatment. Especially not with the way he half ignored them and sneered when one thought of something funny to say.

I walked towards them, Connie stood a bit behind me, his expression telling me "dude, are you sure?" and I nodded at the silent question.

Another question.

How do you cure an asshole?

Press all his buttons until he goes past anger and caves in.

All of the buttons.

I sashayed up to Marco, breaking through the crowd and put my arms around Marco, not caring how embarrassed I was.

"Mar-Mar! I missed you over the one day I didn't see you, I've been counting down the hours, no, wait; the minutes until I could see you again."

I pulled back to see a horrified and very pissed off Bodt. His jaw was tense, his anger simmering but not quite making him loose his cool. Not that he could when people were watching. I took in his features, because you know, I hadn't seen him so close in a while and I missed seeing him, I guess. His mouth was set in a straight line. Were his lips tan coloured? Pink? Tan pink? Is that even a colour? Oh wait, peach. He had peach coloured lips.

His hair shone as the window from behind us displayed the sun beaming down on us, making the place a bit warmer. His freckles stood out as he blushed furiously, hating every bit of me as I humiliated him in front of his friends. Heh. What more could be done…

I grinned up at him. "I like your face today, it's nice." Marco protested, telling me to get off of him.

"Dude," Connie hissed from behind the crowd. "You gotta say no homo."

I looked back and frowned at him.

"You think, you think I'm hitting on him? Fuck, girls do this all the time to each other and they never have to say no fucking homo."

I glanced back at Marco, who'd shrugged my hands off, trying to push me away and I held his hands in mine.

"So, your face…You know where else I'd like to see it?" I caressed his fingers, staring straight into flickering brown eyes.

"And that is how I'd hit on a guy."

"What?" Connie and Marco said at the same time.

I placed my hands on my hips with pride, letting go of Marco's. He was still blushing, was I doing the red face thing too? More than likely.

Marco shook his head at me in confusion.

"I… don't… I don't get it?"

I groaned, hiding my face with one hand.

"Never mind. So, this is where you and your goonies hang out? I was wondering where your batcave was."

He crossed his arms, ignoring the fascinated and also terrified faces of his friends, and glared at me.

"What, are you stalking me? Again? You're such a fucking creep."

"Hmm? Well, I'm only a stalker for you, Mar-Mar. I don't quite fancy sniffing up Connie's trail. He'd probably shit his pants along the way and it'd stink like hell."

Marco's friends looked at me in awe, their mouths forming little o's and their eyebrows raised underneath overgrown bowl cuts.

He noticed their apparent admiration, which I totally wasn't soaking up, and snarled at them.

"Hey, you guys, isn't he weird? A weird, queer?"

"Not as weird as you, you fucked up asshole. Don't fucking talk to your friends like that. I sure as hell don't and I'm well known for being an ass." I told him, beginning to get mad that he was hiding behind his friends.

Marco gave me a side glance, drawing closer to gain an intimidating height advantage over me.

"Damn right, you've even got the face for one, horse boy."

"How did you know I had horses back home? How thoughtful of you, you remembered!"

I mocked a frown, pretending to scratch my chin in question.

"Actually, I didn't tell you that. How on earth did you know? Did you…"

I widened my eyes, faking fear.

"Stalk me?"

Marco's friends were beginning to laugh, or trying to hold it back with snorts and coughs. Marco pointed a finger at me, trying not to glance at giggling idiots around us.

"You know what, John? Fuck you!" he stormed out the stairwell, leaving me, Connie and his friends in a laughing heap as I reached over to Connie, my arm shaking from the laughter.

"What," I gasped. "What have I fucking done? Oh my god, that was priceless. It wasn't even that much of a come back."

"What were you even trying to do Jean? Jeez, you totally pissed him off."

"Mission accomplished."

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around to see a fair haired boy with dark eyebrows (two toned, just like me!). He looked up at me sheepishly.

"How did… you do that?"

I frowned, my laughter stopping. "What do you mean?"

"Like… how did you stand up to him like that?"

I turned to see everyone had stopped laughing, looking at me and waiting for an answer.

"Um, well, apparently annoying a bitchy Bodt is my speciality. We used to be friends, so I know how to piss him off."

"Wow, we've been friends with him since elementary school, and we've never," he glanced to the others with a sad look. "We've never been able to get back at him when he's like that."

"Wait, since elementary school?"

Shit, I'd only known him for four years. I'd say they were lucky bastards, having been with Freckled Jesus for so long. But that clearly wasn't the case.

"Do you guys not like him? I mean not like I blame you but, you know…"

They shook their heads, not afraid of talking bad about him behind his back. But then again, he really was an ass. A bully to his friends, too. I grinned at them, wanting to lighten the situation.

"Don't worry, I'll see to it that I fix up that attitude of his."

They nodded gratefully, relief showing their faces as they finally stopped looking around to see if Marco was there, watching them.

"Are you, you know. Like, actually queer? I mean, gay?"

I shook my head at the brunette who'd asked.

"Because, even if you were, I'd be fine with that. I think the others would be too." They all nodded furiously, frowning to show they were serious. "If he gives you trouble for that, just come to us."

My shoulders slackened. Really? They were offering to help me when they couldn't even help themselves? I thanked them, just as Connie walked up closer to me.

"Jean, I think we'd better go back to the bench. Our stuff's there and the bell's about to set off. And it's always loudest here. I don't fancy my ears bleeding anymore than they are already."

"Eh? Why are your ears bleeding?"

"You're the worst at pick up lines. Just… don't ever, ever say something like that again."

"Pfft, like you're some expert."

"Oh yeah? Watch me. Give me three days." he smirked at me.

What…? What was he going to do in three days? Something to do with pick up lines?

Huh?

I waved the crowd off as Connie and I headed back to the bench. The blonde guy smiled at me meaningfully.

Right, so I'd have to watch out for his gay ass now. Great.

I watched as he ran up to his friends, smiling way more happily than he had done around Marco.

Hmmm. Me, Jean Kirstein, pick up expert and gay adviser. As you do, I guess.


	6. Chapter 6

A certain Bodt worked 4pm to 6pm on a Monday night at the hellhole known as Danny's Diner. I had the pleasure of going there to give him a surprise after school that day. Something he'd go red about, illuminating those freckles of his and would make him call out my name…

"Jean!" Marco flushed once he saw.

Marco stood behind the black counter of the bar in Danny's Diner, his arms and shoulders tense in anger as he glared at me with as much scariness a freckled saint could muster. Hint, it's not much. Especially since I always thought of him looking like a rabbit. Besides, Marco had been playing the "I'm so angry all the time, grrr!" game a week too long and it was getting old. I was kinda worried his eyebrows would stay frowning forever, and that was not exactly an appealing idea.

His surprise? None else but moi, of course!

I grinned at him and walked over to the counter. He was wearing his uniform, and his red cap didn't do much to hide the redness in his face and it cast shadows over it. So this would be what the darkness would look like on his face when we finally got to it in the bedroom… It cast some nice angles, I'll tell you that.

Er, so, I'd kind of given up on the whole "Am I gay?" process because let's face it; Marco was a piece of ass that anyone would be glad to tap, whether he was one or not, and I was at the beginning of that queue to do just that. Shower me with rainbows and dress me up pretty; I was no longer having a shitty "gay panic", whoop-de-do.

It hadn't really been difficult to figure out. All I had to do was count the times I'd thought to myself "Don't think that, it's gay" or the amount of times I'd caught myself staring at his muscled arms or his freaking gorgeous face and, yeah I'm not exactly proud of the numbers that brings with it.

I gave him a two fingered salute on the side of my forehead.

"Howdy. What's up, Mar-Mar?"

I sat down on the spinning bar stool and made myself comfortable while Marco found himself in an awkward spot behind the counter as I faced him with an innocent smile. He raised an eyebrow as he folded his arms crossly and sighed, looking back at me with a tired and "I'm not dealing with this shit just now or ever" expression.

"Wow. Why am I not surprised." Aw. My plan was utterly ruined, then. Boo Marco, at least pretend. "What's up? You wanna know what's up? The sky, the ceiling. Certainly not my lower half, that's for sure." He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation and turned away from me.

I stared at his back for a second, processing what he'd just said. Did he just seriously…? Innuendos were my thing, he knew that all too well since he'd experienced it first hand. Was I really rubbing off on him that much already? I laughed, probably a second too late, but oh well. He sighed, looking back at me.

"Is Claudia with you?" I shook my head at him, pursing my lips.

"Right, so… You're just here by yourself. I wish I could pity you, jeez."

The silence just then was most likely an awkward one, but for me it was the perfect opportunity to eye him up while I had the chance. Since I'd admitted to myself that I wanted the Godly Bod of Bodt, I just couldn't help myself, like some kid at a buffet with ice cream all stacked up in the freezer.

I just never got tired of it, even though it was always the same and yet somehow like a different person each time I looked at him again. He was a different person from what I remembered in my dreams, he genuinely was an asshole and yeah, that probably put me in a worse light. Because how can you like someone who's horrible to everyone? His friends? Even you?

His jaw line was awesome, I was a bit jealous of just how sharply squared it was. I'd run my fingers through his mess of ebony hair that parted in the middle any day, with bangs wet and sweaty from P.E and all. My favourite part of his face had to be his freckles. Often, people had compared them to constellations and Dalmatians' spots. To me, they were dot to dot pictures.

Sometimes, on the nights when I couldn't sleep in my dorm bed by myself, I'd snuck into his bed without him knowing and traced all of his freckles, drawing flowers and animals and stars until I was too tired to focus on his skin and crept back to my bed, not wanting to seem weird by waking up in his bed the next morning.

Memories like that made my heart race faster; I could remember every sensation, all the dips of his cheeks and the creases in his skin and it's softness. I'd bet you my entire dinner that I could draw them out on a portrait without misplacing even one. That was a little insane, thinking about it now.

Just how much did I already like this guy?

I really wanted to take that god awful frown off his face and replace it with a timid love sick look, so I could see that he liked me just as much as I did him…

While lost in my thoughts and drooling slightly with half open eyes, Marco mumbled something and turned a dark shade of red. I knew that my art teacher would say that red and tan clashed badly, but on his face they were already a painting worth looking at.

"Wait, what?" I said brightly, trying to focus on what he was saying.

"I'm not repeating myself." He told me stubbornly.

I pouted. "Aw, please? I have the attention span of a goldfish and I didn't hear it the first time."

"Goldfish have a short memory span, and by the way since you "remember" so much about me, I reckon that's a lie."

I leaned over the counter, my playful "All the homo" jumper shifting slightly as I rested my cheek on my palm, propping an elbow on the counter. I stared at him, giving him "the look" until he cracked.

He rolled his eyes then looked back at me, his eyes seemed serious now.

"I said I'm sorry."

"Uh, what for?"

"Ugh you know exactly what for, for being an asshole. Don't make me say it."

"Okay, but… could you maybe be more specific? You've lost me."

He groaned. "Fine. I'm sorry I was a dick and pushed you into a wall on the third day. I'm sorry for all the times I called you gay and when I called you queer today. Happy?"

"What about all the times you called me annoying? I seem to remember that there were a lot of those floating around…"

Marco just looked at me, raised an eyebrow and didn't answer me.

"Okay, Okay. I'm an annoying weirdo and you're a dick. I'm glad we've got that cleared up." His shoulders loosened and he let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks." I added, he gave me a small, stiff smile.

I frowned, remembering what had happened earlier on today.

"Did you say sorry to your friends?"

The guilty look on his face spoke for itself. I sighed. He honestly was a jerk, wasn't he? He was actually worse than me, and I was pretty awful myself.

"Look, I don't exactly control your life, and I'm grateful that you at least apologised to me, but those guys have had it so much worse than I have from you. You've known those guys since elementary school, or so they said. That's a fucking long time to be pushed about by someone who's supposed to be your friend and it's definitely a long time to feel awful about yourself because of one dickhead of a guy."

I glowered at him to emphasize my seriousness. He wouldn't be forgiven any time soon, that's for sure. Not by me or those guys.

He leaned onto the counter heavily, dropping his shoulders onto the marble surface as he looked down at it. He ran his fingers down the back of his head then looked up again with a sigh.

"Yeah, you're right. For once. I totally should've apologised to my friends a long time ago." I nodded in agreement. He looked at the counter sadly. "I'll tell them the next time I see them, try to make it up to them, somehow."

"Good." I gave him a small smile which he returned, his face seemingly more relaxed now that he'd gotten that off his chest.

He shook his head at me in wonder and stared at me, making a bit of heat rush to my face. Why was he…? Argh, stop it, he was making me go red, god damn it. As if I couldn't already feel the stupid pounding of my core in my ears and as though time hadn't slowed down around us at that counter.

His mouth quirked into a smile, making me melt a bit.

"Why can't you be like this all the time?"

What, love struck? An idiot with a crush?

I sat up straight, taking my arm off the counter frowned at him.

"What, you mean you want me to lecture you more often? You want me to whip your fixer upper as into shape like I promised? I'm free after school on Thursday if you want a special class on how to be nice."

"… I was actually thinking along the lines of you being a caring guy that didn't leave me annoying texts with too many kisses at the end to be a guy."

I shrugged at him. "Sorry, no can do Mar-Mar."

He looked at the ceiling and shaking his head in mock despair, but he was smiling even so. It felt nice to talk to him like this. I didn't need to blurt out crappy one liners and comebacks to irritate him and it was calm like this, peaceful, almost. I could see what he'd meant before.

"Can I get an ice cream?"

He looked at me, confusion playing over that awesome face of his. I told him I had a sweet tooth and was craving something sweet, even though I knew the ice cream here was terrible. He told me it was on him when I got my wallet out and I smiled stupidly at his back as he put his own money in the cash register. Buying me ice cream. That's something done on a date, isn't it?  
To his apparent surprise, I took the ice cream from him when he had it made and went over to sit at a kid free table zone where it was quietest. I had to let the poor guy I was tormenting do his job, at least.

Luckily for me the diner was relatively quiet. At least the shrieks I heard were ones of joy, unlike last time. In the far left corner of the room, I saw two girls playing "sea monsters" in the colourful ball pit . I watched as they through foam balls at each other, dramatically pretending to be defeated only to rise again for the next round until they tiredly fell back onto the balls, dissolved into giggles.

At the back of the diner, I had a window behind me and I saw that the sky was filled with rain clouds already. I shoved my bag onto a chair and sat in the one beside it. I opened it up and took out the papers to lay them on the table, moving the menu with a huge picture of the winking tiger to the side. It wasn't exactly star bucks so I couldn't pass it off as being hipster, but hey if I was gonna be here all by myself, the least I could do was be productive.

"Productive." Right…

Marco was wandering around the diner, seeing to the customers that came in, soaked from the drizzle outside. He bent over a table one away from mine. I watched the delicate curve of his ass as he leaned over. My lower half became interested as I imagined him leaning over a desk at school, mewling beneath me…

Okay so the whole "I'm so gay for him" situation I was in wasn't going to help me explain why Othello was a good guy because he killed himself. What a mood killer, ugh. At least I didn't have to worry about being aroused as he wandered over to my table and stood over me nonchalantly.

"You having fun there?" He took in the sight of my table, littered by paper and books and my bowl of now melted ice cream. It was lovely, liquid and white mess… I ate a spoonful of it, licking the spoon for effect as I peeked at him.

"Yummy." I grinned at him. "So's the ice cream."

"Oh my-that is so cliché Jean. The least you could do is be original when you're trying to pick me up." He chuckled as he walked towards the bar, hopefully not seeing my red face.

Had I, jean Kirstein, a chance with the glorious Freckled Jesus if I trifled him with a dash of my quirky uniqueness?

"You're still not allowed to tell anyone about my job, by the way." He blushed as he spoke to me over his shoulder.

Ooh, was he going to dress up again? Suddenly I was excited as all the kids were about to be. I quickly shoved my papers into my bag and slipped out my phone, hiding it just underneath the table.

The camera was already recording.


	7. Chapter 7

He reappeared from behind the bar door wearing the legendary Tiger suit I'd been waiting all of Sunday and Monday to see.

He waved at the kids as theme music came on, and he danced around without an ounce of shame with the kids that ran up to him and tried to cuddle him and/or climb on him. I decided to get closer, taking my things with me, still holding my phone in place, no longer needing to hide it.

How likely was it that he could see through those fabric cat eyes? I took my chances, daring to go back to the bar counter with a half full bowl of gloop and spun around in the seat to look at Marco, my phone's camera still trained him.

Armin didn't work tonight, which was a shame. It meant I was alone at the bar while Marco paraded around. He was kind of a nice kid, if you tolerated the smart ass part. He had some clever jokes, and I guessed that it made up for his nerdy-ness.

I heard him shout out that they were going to have a disco and all the kids screamed when he asked them if they were excited. WHAT'S THAT, HE COULDN'T HEAR THEM?! More screaming. Screw you Bodt. I didn't bother covering my pained ears, looking through the camera as it recorded him. The lights dimmed and disco lights beamed around the room.

I was soooo going to make him regret ever leaving me in his workplace when he knew fine well that I had a phone with an HD camera. Not that he'd ever know until it was time. I chuckled darkly to myself.

All the kids was gathered into the centre of the room, where there was space, and all the parents watched from their seats, cooing as they saw their children prance about like idiots. No, but seriously, they just bouncing around. Eh. It was kind of cute, I guessed.

Especially when Marco twirled a blonde girl in a blue dress around in circles until she was dizzy. His awkwardness showed through the striped suit as he panicked, thinking she'd fall over and grabbed her.

I saved the video on my phone as the music changed from Lady Gaga to some dude I didn't know. The kids drank it all up, loving every second that they danced around with a two legged tiger that clearly didn't have the Moves like Jager. (Guess what Eren's email was. Go on, I dare you.)

I raced up to Marco as he danced by himself, taking his huge paws into my hands, twirling him around before he could protest. The kids laughed like maniacs when they saw me, still jumping around to the dance beat.

"IlikeyouIlikeyouIlikeyouIlikeyou, yeah…"  
"I see you shinning like sparks, oh oh oh..."

I grinned at Marco who was probably scowling at me, then a little girl without any hair gripped my left hand and I looked at Marco.

Then we all ended up in a great huge circle, the more adventurous parents venturing in as they held their children's hands, or maybe they linked up with a stranger.

We all sang the chorus, wildly, some of us not even understanding what the other was saying, the music set us on a high as his voice echoed throughout the diner, our bodies swaying and heads bobbing from side to side and feet stomping to the music like we couldn't help but jump around like crazed fools. Some of the workers came out from behind the bar to join in, others to take pictures and videos as they watched us with wide grins.

I'll tell you; that day was ten times better than any club I'd ever go to in the future. We were a bunch of kids having a clean, pure and euphoric sugar high.

"Oh you set me on fire!"

The song faded out, everyone gasping. Then we all looked at each other, sweat on our foreheads from the heat of the room, cheeks flushed and eyes wide with excitement and burst out laughing for no reason.

After we'd calmed down and the disco ended after another couple of songs, the parents of the bald girl (who I'm guessing was going through Chemo or just had a hair falling out problem. Or who knows, maybe she'd taken inspiration from good old Connie. Sorry.) rounded me and Marco up to take a picture with the girl.

She was wearing a sparkly dress with bits of black velvet by the neck. Maybe it was a bit mature for someone who looked about seven years old, but who was I to judge? She looked adorable as she dimpled a grin for her dad who held the camera. Marco and I put an arm around each others shoulders and hugged the girl with our free one. The camera flashed as we said "sausages!"

That evening had me in a good mood for ages, and I hadn't felt like that in a long time.

The next day I went inside the corner shop near my house. It was a daily routine for me to go by and get a sweet or something for lunch when I didn't want school dinners. I opened the door as it rang out with a buzz to alert the workers that there was a customer.

The till attendant, Suzy, was a big woman with a scary amount of ginger hair on her head. I just hoped she had a pin or a needle to deflate it before she went to bed at night. We'd never really gotten acquainted other than a few grunts and her telling me how much something cost here and there.

I browsed the shelves, looking for something sweet today. I glanced at the newspapers, usually just looking at the headlines for old times sake since my dad was a lawyer.

I stopped when I came across a picture spread of the photo the guy at Danny's had taken last night. I went over to the stand, picking up the paper. We were on the headline.

"Izzy MacFarlene, 6 years old, was able to enjoy a memorable night at Danny's Diner with her parents and passed away today at 7am after having talked about the disco with her parents the previous night. Izzy suffered from severe leukaemia, and she will always be remembered for her sweet smile and her bravery throughout the year and a half she received treatment. Picture shows the employee dressed as "Danny the Tiger" and a friend at the Diner with Izzy who both made her last night special with her."

I was tearing up by the end of the article. There were loads of pictures, all of them showing Izzy smiling, as she went into a CAT scan for the first time to the time she'd lost all her golden hair with dark splodges marking her skin.

It had been too dark in the diner to see the bruises and suddenly I was terrified that I'd held onto her hand too tightly. Her hands had been fragile, I remembered that, but I hadn't seen a single bruise on that innocent, doll-like face of hers.

Heading towards Suzy with the newspaper in my hands, my mission to find a sweet was forgotten and I bought the paper at the till.

I showed it to Marco as we changed in the locker room for basketball practice. I tried not to stare at his topless, quite ripped body and wide shoulders as he read it, his eyes tearing up just as mine had done. He whispered a quiet "awh" and gripped the paper tighter, looking up at me with a sad smile once he'd finished. We didn't speak after that until we got into the gym. It was only respectful, after all.

-  
In my last lesson that same day I'd gotten the newspaper, which was art, I'd still been really happy about the disco and how Marco had apologised to me. Hopefully he'd done so for his friends too by now.

My dad hadn't minded me taking art once I'd gotten into high school, in fact it kind of sounded like he'd wanted me to. I get the feeling that my mom had been an artist of some sort, but my dad never told me anything about her because it made him uncomfortable around me.

Still, he was a good guy and I could understand that he was still upset about the divorce they'd had when I was five. Granted, it was at least ten years since their divorce, but he'd gotten over it to some extent, evidently if he'd gotten married again when I was thirteen.

I hadn't actually been inclined to take art. I liked to doodle in my jotters, yeah but actually painting and sculpting? That seemed a bit girly. Then, when I actually took it for an easy subject choice and tried it, I found I had way too many awesome ideas for my own good; relentlessly going from idea to idea without ever actually developing one like I was supposed to and continuously pumping out new designs and compositions and doing things in several styles.

My teachers loved my enthusiasm and it was the second only class I properly put effort into, other than P.E which wasn't even what I was taking, it was a required subject that everyone had to do.

I was painting quite happily at my work top, working on a piece with a bowl, an apple and a small jug with fabric underneath that I'd decided to do in warm colours with the thick paints. I was in a world of my own in that class; no-one could separate me from my work once I'd started, unless it was a teacher giving me advice. I glanced at the clock every now and then to make sure I wouldn't be late in packing my paints and palette away since I had practice after class.

I glanced up for probably the fifth time that period, more than what I usually did since I'd been eager to show Marco the article and I was about to go back to my work when I noticed people were staring at me.

They looked at me, half amused and what looked somewhat like wonder, a lot of the girls' eyes had glazed over and they blushed as some returned to their work. A couple of the guys chuckled at my lack of knowledge.

"What? Why's everyone looking at me?" I asked, my voice feeling weird since I hadn't used it all period.

Christa sat opposite me. She was working on a sea life themed piece with a crab and other various things you'd find on the beach, I guess. She smiled at me, blushing as well.

"I think it's because you were singing." She chuckled, looking at me through a fan of blonde eyelashes. "You have a good voice, I wasn't expecting you to be able to sing."

My face turned red as I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks and I stared down at my work. Now she mentioned it, I did have a song stuck on my head. My teacher, a grey haired and slightly wrinkled woman with blue eyes that went by the name "Miss Duncan", passed by my table, overhearing our conversation.

"You know, I heard that it's people who're happy who tend to sing to themselves." She took a look at my painting, which I'd rushed a bit since I was really feeling the urge to paint today. "It even shows in your painting, seeing as you've used warm colours."

Happy? I was singing to myself and using a specific set of colours because I was fucking happy?

Yeah, I guessed I was happy. A lot of good things had happened since I'd started high school and last night had topped it off.

But seriously? Singing? That was just totally embarrassing.

Unless Marco would want a serenade or some cheesy crap like that, then I'd do it with the same bravery I'd used to squeeze the life out of him in front of his friends with Connie watching from behind, who'd probably been wondering what the hell his newly gay friend was doing. He hadn't mentioned it afterwards though.

Oh wait shit, now I had to tell people? That was not going to be fun. I hadn't even told Marco yet and that was the whole point of liking someone.

Give me strength.


	8. Chapter 8

I was in pitch darkness. I couldn't tell where I was or what was happening. I didn't think I'd been gagged or kidnapped, but something about this place just didn't feel right.

I heard screaming, echoing the walls of what must've been a big hall and I covered my ears to block it out, but it didn't work. The screams sounded like monkey cries, like it was a zoo and the chimps were rioting.

Just as I was about to stomp over the where the cries came from to tell them to "shut the fuck up", a spot light shone over the headmaster's lectern and I saw the silhouette of a figure. It stepped into the light, revealing a monkey with glasses and a white beard holding a plush bear toy. The screams grew louder and even more animal-like.

Before I had time to think and ask what the hell was going on, the monkey morphed into Connie, still with glasses and a beard. The banging of a gavel set me on edge in my seat. I didn't remember how I'd gotten there and I was trying to work it out in my panic.

"OI! YOU LOT! Silence in the courtroom! I'm speaking, ya know and screaming isn't exactly very polite, so shut the fuck up!" he yelled, his voice in a prepubescent high pitch.

Connie's voice stopped the screaming and when I turned to see where the other monkeys were, I saw my P.E class sitting in the witness stands; all wearing their 3DMG and holding onto plush toys that were almost the same size as them. I saw one of the plush toys glare at me, a big rabbit. It's glassy eyes and extra wide, toothy grin made me want to punch it. I don't do well with sinister.

"So everyone's here, yeah? All the witnesses and stuff? Awesome, awesome. Right, I hearby announce the case open to y'all in said courtroom."

He motioned to the back of the room with a pointed finger.

"Bring forth the damned, I mean, accused. Tell him I'll kick his ass personally if he doesn't get through here now."

I turned to the back of the hall to see huge doors opening. Marco walked through them with a plush toy of his own, his wrists caught in cuffs and he hung his head as he trudged into the room. An angry looking cat plush in a uniform glared at him and kicked him in the back of his knees. He yelped and moved faster. My heart beat quickened painfully in my chest and I tried to stand up, so I could help him and get us out of here, but by the looks of it, I was stuck in the chair. My voice didn't work; I couldn't call out to him.

Connie rested an elbow on the lectern as he smirked down at Marco who stood in front of him.

"You had the nerve to ridicule me with the name hairless, huh? Do you consider me blunt? Well, then; let me be straightforward with you. You are here today for your previous actions, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Marco pouted, sticking out his lower lip out and I saw his eyes become weirdly big and black. He nodded, creasing his eyebrows as though he was about to cry.

Connie jumped up and down behind the lectern, smiling dangerously.

"Ha! So you admit it! You really do! You're totally guilty!" Connie stopped jumping, scratching his beard thoughtfully. I still didn't understand what Marco was guilty of and why he'd nodded.

"Okay well, to be honest I was kinda hoping you would at least try to defend yourself so I could call you out on your bullshit, but oh no; you just can't let me have my fun, can you?"

He sighed, walking down steps to make his way to Marco who'd started trembling in his black and white prisoner clothes. His face was suddenly up close next to Marco's, their noses almost touching and Connie grinned. It seemed really fucking creepy, and that's not something Connie was capable of.

"So, Mr Freckles," his voice dropped with an edge of worrying malice. "What would you do for a kondalike bar?"

I shot up in my seat and screamed, desperately hoping my voice would work.

"No! Don't make him do it! He's just a kid so he-"

"Oh but, Pony boy," Connie glanced at me, his beard wasn't there anymore and his glasses had grown in size. Marco followed suite and looked at me with a sad smile.

"It's not his punishment. It's yours." Connie started laughing maniacally, Marco began to sob as he waved at me.

My alarm blared beside me in my bed and I woke up before I could scream back at them.

I was in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Not in a courtroom. Connie and Marco weren't there and all the plush toys were definitely not alive and in Claudia's room. I let go of my grip on my dark grey covers, sighing as I tossed an arm over my eyes to bloke out the sunlight that shone through my curtains.

You really do get nightmares from eating cheese before bed. Even if it's just cheesecake. I highly recommend that you DON'T do this.

"What do you mean cheesecake doesn't have cheese in it? Of course it does! Otherwise it wouldn't be called "cheese"-cake, duh." I told my step mom, Louise.

I sat down at the kitchen table, putting my plate of toast onto it as I turned to face her.

"That's like saying that carrot cake doesn't include carrots, and it does. Of course it does." I mumbled, stuffing the bread into my mouth.

She looked at me from where she leaned against the counter, crossing her arms and shaking her head at me. Her blue eyes glinted in amusement.

"If you say so Jean. Maybe you should Google it if you're going to start having a tantrum about it. Now, if you'll excuse me," she turned around to face the counter before I could protest.

"I need to make Claudia's lunch. Are you alright with eating at school again? I think there's money for you on the little table in the living room."

I sighed. "Yeah, it's fine."

Louise was a nice enough woman. She was just a little too sassy to have a kid that would copy her and what she said. Apart from that, she reminded me a lot of Mikasa. She usually wore a simple red dress that was a little darker than Mikasa's scarf, she had brown hair that was almost black and she was really pale-but not in the smooth, glossy sense. More like the Queen of England kind of pale, although I had to be fair; she didn't have as much wrinkles as most women her age.

I ate my toast in silence as Louise went about her motherly ways, then went up to my room to get ready for school. That had been such a weird dream, a really random and creepy dream. I checked my phone after slipping into my clothes; a red and white top and blue jeans.

Marco couldn't have known how excited I'd been when he gave me his phone number, and I'd gotten to walk home with him afterwards! Okay, maybe he'd walked as far as he could behind me and I shouted so I could speak to him the entire way to my house. I looked at his contact picture that he scowled in as I lay on my bed. I totally didn't look at it all the time. Sigh, he was so cute even when he was angry.

No new messages. Well, that wasn't exactly surprising. We didn't have anything to talk about, we weren't friends, aaaand he considered me a stalker. His stalker. The only messages I'd sent him were about practice times and me asking him if he remembered me yet. Yet.

There was always time. I just needed to find his memory trigger.

At lunchtime I walked to my usual table outside with the two duos where there was an extra duo today; Ymir and Christa. I held my sandwich box in my hand tightly.

"OH, hey Jean!" Connie waved at me and he smiled.

I tried to smile back but all I could see was that god damn monkey with a beard and glasses. If I'm honest, Connie really did resemble a monkey. He walked up to me, glancing behind him.

"Hey so, you remember what you said about me not being a flirting expert?" I nodded, vaguely remembering how he'd insulted my pick up lines. "Today is the today that plan goes into action!" he told me excitedly.

"Okay but it's only Wednesday, you said you needed three days."

"No I said "give me three days". And here I am, ready after two days like the absolute star I am." He grinned at me, rushing back to his seat beside Sasha.

I sat next to Ymir, knowing she'd probably hit me if I sat beside Christa. We hadn't really ever gotten along, but hopefully she was at least a little nicer in this life. Like the tomboy she was, she was wearing jeans and a football top while Christa sat next to her wearing a floral skirt and blouse. Talk about two total opposites attracting by some magical and illogical force. I nodded to her in greeting. She clicked her tongue, glaring at me before nodding back then turning back to face Christa.

Everyone was involved in their own conversations, eating their lunches and then Connie started speaking especially loudly, as though he was addressing everyone as he spoke to Sasha.

"So you were doing track in P.E, yeah?" She nodded, about to speak until he interrupted her, scratching his head. "Yer legs must be mighty tired then 'cause yeh've been running through my mind all week."

Across the table from me, Bertholdt and Reiner raised their eyebrows simultaneously. I covered my mouth, trying to stop myself from laughing at their mirroring of each other when they looked at each other incredulously. Sasha smiled sweetly at Connie, resting her elbow on the table as she did so.

"What's that on your hand?" She rested her palm on his knuckles, making him blush and stare at her with wide eyes. "Oh look! It's me!"

"Hey, you know I'm a pretty awesome basketball player. You want me to show you some of my moves?" He winked at her, putting his other hand on top of her and leaned in towards her.

Both of them were blushing like crazy, sitting closer and closer until they were almost on each other's laps until Ymir coughed and told them to shut up.

"You know, if we could, we'd be all over each other too, right Christa?" Christa glimpsed at us nervously before nodding with a smile.

"What's to say you can't?" I asked them.

Ymir crossed her arms, sitting up straight in her seat.

"Because this place is full of homophobes and dicks." she growled.

Sasha piped up. "And to think out of all these dicks I chose yours. Isn't that amazing?" She shook her head in mock sadness at Connie.

"Connie, are you and Sasha dating or something?" Reiner furrowed his brow at them, clearly beginning to get pissed off at them, more than the usual.

"What? No, I was just showing Jean how to use pick up lines because he's crap and as you can see; I'm a total expert. Flirting doesn't mean we're dating, right Sash?" She nodded with a sly grin.

"I was just going with it because I knew he was up to something."

They shifted to sit back in their own seats, still red in the face as they picked at their lunches.

"Hey, guys…" Bertholdt was looking behind me and I turned to find Marco standing behind me.

"Oh, uh, hey Mar-mar," Sasha burst out laughing at my nickname for him, making Marco glare at me and clench his jaw. "What's up?"

He stopped glaring and his face relaxed, although I could tell he was still annoyed.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?"

Eh? Why did he want to sit here? I was pretty sure he didn't like our P.E class.

"I guess so, is that alright guys?"

I didn't expect to turn around to see everyone staring daggers at him.

"No. I don't think that's alright." Connie gripped onto the side of the table, his knuckles turning white.

"Aw why? He said he was sorry about before in P.E and everything. We're cool now, he's cool." It didn't look like I was convincing them.

"This was the asshole that almost got Reiner in detention for beating him up on Monday; after he called him queer in front of the whole class in English." Ymir whispered to me, her face twitching like an angry rabbit's whiskers.

I raised my eyebrows and I probably had my mouth open. Marco had run away after I'd seen him and his friends the other day, but taking it out on Reiner? What the hell was he trying to do? Get himself killed?! I felt betrayed. He'd been so nice to me at work, or as nice as he was capable of. Why did he still have to be such a dick?

Standing up and abandoning my lunch, I grabbed Marco by the shoulder and marched around the corner of the school building to where the bike shed was. He told me to let go of him, shoving my hand away.

"What the hell Marco?! It's one thing to call me gay but for Reiner? I'm completely surprised you aren't dead! Why the fuck would you say sorry to me after going about and-"

"Look, just shut up!"

"-did you even think about what you were getting into when you came to the table and saw-"

"The only reason I came to see you and your shitty posse was because mine ditched me! Does that make you feel any better?"

I stopped shouting at him, glaring at him with every ounce of ice cold anger I could show.

"You think I care about that? Do you really fucking think you'd get away with treating my friends like shit just because you couldn't fucking take care of your own? They ditched you, right? Don't even think about acting like an asshole to everyone else just because you're upset and alone. You don't get to use me like that whenever it suits you. You fucking deserve to be left alone if you can't even get over yourself and tell them you're sorry."

"I did though! And then they went and said that I had to make up for it! What the hell was I supposed to do? Be their slave for a day? Go to Timbuk-fucking-tu to get them something nice?! And when I told them I couldn't, they left me. I already did what I was supposed to, so it's their own fault." He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

I sighed loudly, rubbing my temples with my fingers then the bridge of my nose. I'd never fought with Marco before. Never like this. How the hell was I going to be any help to anyone in this sort of situation? This was the kind of thing Marco always helped me to get out of, not the other way round.

He was shaking angrily. I knew he was really upset and freaking out, but the truth was that he was being a total dick and we needed to fix that. I tried to calm down.

"Marco, when they said they wanted you to make it up to them, all you had to do was be nice to them. If you can't last five minutes without ordering someone around or being really rude to them you're never going to have friends." I pointed a finger at him.

"See, this is why I want you to remember our past lives. Back then you were really nice and you weren't the kind to have problems like this. If anything you were helping me with mine."

He pushed me against the wall, like he had done the first time I'd met him in this life. His hatred burned through his eyes into my own.

"I'm not that fucking dude you think I am. This is reality. This is how I am." His voice began to shake as he spoke through angry tears.

"I'm not going to remember any stupid, shitty past life because there isn't one, okay? You need to go get your head checked because you're all kinds of fucked up."

I pushed him back, grabbing his shoulders.

"I'm fucked up?! You think I'm the one that's fucked up? I don't go about acting like I own the place and talking shit about everyone I see. Go fuck yourself Marco. Get to fuck."

He gave me one last look. I could see the tears in his eyes and then with a flash of freckles he stormed off. I dropped to the ground, resting my back against the wall. I groaned.

A change of his attitude was something he didn't want, it seemed. Well that sure as hell made my plan ten times more difficult. Ugh, I was supposed to like him, wasn't I? Why did we have to fight? I had a feeling he wouldn't be remembering things or having me tell him I liked him anytime soon.


	9. Chapter 9

Of all the things I could do, I wasn't allowed to do the one thing that I wanted to do. I saw it; me running up to a stormy Marco and kissing away all his angry tears and hugging him and telling him I was sorry and he'd say sorry too and we'd both start crying all over again. It would've been awesome. Hell, it would've been the best of everything and then some.

But, the thing is; that's not how fights are resolved. It's not like how it is in the movies where they fight and then someone chases someone else across the ocean and then it's all kisses and cuddles. It's not like that at all. It's so stressful that your head just wants to implode because you're mad and hurt and then you're mad because you're hurt and you should know that you're better than all that.

Heartbreak? More like headache.

Also, I didn't think Marco would exactly appreciate his irritating and super flirtatious team captain slobbering all over his face with a mixture of drool and tears. Especially not without an explanation. And there it is; the fact that I was going to have to look for the right time to tell him, and that was on top of the effort of telling him I liked him.

How lucky was I though, I wouldn't have to worry about that for a while. Although my hormonal teenage mind kept going back to that dilemma like an ex-alcoholic visits his local pub out of habit.

I stood up off the ground, using the wall as a leaning tool to prop myself up. I sighed, walking slowly around the corner of the school back to my friends at the table. By some miracle my bag and lunch were still in place. I don't think you understand just how amazing such an occurrence is; my bag and my lunch, both untouched by my friends.

At least, it seemed amazing until I walked towards a table of suspiciously guilty looking people who avoided my gaze as I realized something.

"Oh my god are you fucking with me?! Why is there shit on my bag? Really?" I looked around to the faces that were biting back their laughter. "You honestly didn't even try to save my stuff? You're all heartless." I growled, not caring if it was their fault or not.

"Wow. This day just keeps getting better." I said, picking my bag up by the strap, not bothering to deal with my now disgusting lunch. Christa smiled over at me apologetically.

The rest of the day? It got even better.

When the bell rang I went to my next lesson, math, with my freshly scrubbed bag which I held at arm's length, not caring if I looked stupid. I wasn't fucking touching bird shit. I walked into the classroom and over to my desk, only to find pencil shavings all over it. And when I say all over it, I mean it seemed as though someone had literally tipped a trashcan's worth of shavings onto my desk and it was already spilling off the sides.

I whipped my head around, looking for the culprit who was going to get their ass kicked out into the main street. Frustrated that I couldn't find them, I picked up the trash can at the front of the class and swept all the shavings into it.

My teacher, Mr Harkforth, walked into the classroom just then as I was on my way back to my desk. His voice droned on and I ignored him talking about blah de blah and kicked my bag under table, not wanting to open my bag to get my mostly unused jotter out. I went out to the front of the class, silently judging anyone that dared to look at me, so that I could get a sheet of paper to doodle on. Math was great; it didn't include working. Thanks, Mr Harkforth.

"Kirstein!" I jumped as the teacher shouted my name. I turned to see him scowling at me from behind an usually tidy desk. For what must've been the first time in ever, he was clean. He dressed like a teacher should; decently. His eyes weren't drunkenly bloodshot.

And that meant that the hippie teacher that smoked dope between classes was actually planning to teach us today. And it was all thanks to his divorce papers that would be signed later on today, or so my sources told me.

"Yeah?" I asked him.

He narrowed his eyes at me, spitting as he spoke. "While you're out here in front of the class, explain how to solve the problem on the black board." He pointed to the board which had a seemingly simple math question.

Keyword: seemingly.

I had to find two numbers. Two simple fucking numbers that had to add up to this and multiply to give that. Why the hell did I need to use the sine and the quadratic formula, huh? And why the fuck did he think was funny to make me rewrite the entire bloody sh-bang when no-one understood because they weren't paying attention?

Now, I'm not one to hate on math, I know we'll use it later in life. But this? This question? It sure as hell wasn't worth me making an idiot out of the class and myself just because my teacher was having a bad day.

And, uh, I may have told him that and got sent to the principal's office? If he had just sent me out, I would've ditched school and went home because I just wasn't up for this shit. Screw my team and basketball practice. But as my incredible luck would have it, he had a quiet, studious girl with glasses, white hair and huge boobs "escort" me to the office.

I pretty much ignored her the entire way there. It wasn't like I knew her, and even if I did, well this was me we're talking about, and I'm not exactly a social person with a "yes we can!" attitude. So instead, I sulked with my shitty bag tossed over my shoulder because I was way beyond caring and I let me shoes squeak on the tiled floor as we passed classes, eventually reaching the hallway with the principal's office. I heard the girl mumble when we arrived at the door and turned around.

"What?" I snapped at her.

She glanced over at me coolly, as if she could scare me, pffft.

"I was just saying, it wasn't really fair of him to make you answer that question so many times. By the looks of it, you've already had a pretty crappy day already. Both of you could probably use the distance between you to get those sticks out your arses."

Did she really just say crappy? Like did smart people even use words like that? I know Armin didn't, and the real Marco never swore. Still, it was kinda cool. For her level, anyway.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But then again; can you expect anything else from this shit hole? It doesn't exactly promise smiles." I grinned at her, taking my sweet time in not going into the office.

"You know, those pencil sharpening didn't get onto your table by accident."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Yeah well, I figured that-"

"When I got into the classroom, I saw Sam Peterson walking away from your desk. Do you know him?"

Ooooof course it was him. That bitchy trio just had to go out of their way and into my classes, especially to make my life hell. I could feel my jaw tensing as I realized I was grinding my teeth.

"I sure do. And uh, thanks for telling me."

I felt a jolt when I looked at her eyes, and not the good kind. They looked just like the nurse's eyes. But to my relief, there weren't as dead looking and this girl clearly wasn't a nurse.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"I'm Rico, figures you wouldn't know that after having class with me for almost two weeks already, Typical jock."

She waved and walked away before I could ask her if she remembered her position as squad leader.

I stared at the brown door with the nameplate gleaming at me as I dreaded my fate.

I sighed dramatically. "If Nemo can touch the butt, I can open this door." I made my way into the office.

Sadly, she spotted me before I could turn around and get the hell out of there.

"Jean! Kirstein, right? Good to see you! Come in, come in, don't the cold air in. It's getting much colder lately, you know? Take a seat won't you? I just got everything refurnished this year, isn't that exciting? Oh, and sorry; don't mind the mess, I'll be needing to do a little clean-up before anybody important comes along."

She said all that before I'd even opened the door fully. Maybe it would be more accurate to describe it as shrieking. And it seemed even more so like that as I saw the piles upon piles of Titan football merchandise strewn across her office. Apparently it didn't matter to her that they were the opposing team of her school.

"Ah, right. I'll just sit here then…" I froze when I saw someone sitting in the other chair beside the one I was reaching out to, my hand hovered in the air as freckles twitched and eyes glared daggers at me. At least, that's what I'd been expecting.

Marco looked up to me with a pleading look in his eyes that said "Please help me. I will do anything; I will clean your skunk with tomato juice for you for the rest of your life if you please just help me." Yes, he really did look that desperate. Clearly he'd been here for long enough to realize he wouldn't be getting out of this room for quite some time yet.

Heaving a sigh and taking one for the team, I sat down the red leather chair and gave Marco an encouraging nod. We might be fighting, but then again it wasn't actually between us. This was Reiner's and Marco's business; even if I had somehow gotten myself included in the hiss fit.

Hanji grinned at me from behind her desk.

"It's lovely to be here, isn't it? Why are you here actually, Jean?" She said it cheerfully, as though she wasn't about to punish me which I had the feeling she'd forget about instantly.

"I just got into a fight with Mr Harkforth. He was taking out his anger on the class so I stood up to him and he sent me out."

She nodded thoughtfully, her brown ponytail bobbed and her glasses glinted in the light of the window to our left.

"Yes, he's going through a divorce at the moment, did you know? I assume you do since everybody knows everyone's business around here. Then again, I might consider firing him since he's a shit-stain on my school's reputation."

And that was exactly why people put up with Hanji's antics.

Some time later, Marco and I had somehow survived holding back a laughter fit.

"Well, thanks for coming in! It's always nice to see my old trainee soldiers in such a lovely environment. To think that I own it all!" She cackled and slammed the door behind us.

I glanced over at Marco, grinning and about to start laughing but stopped when I saw he was frowning.

"What's the matter?"

He shook his head and looked back the door in confusion.

"Did he just call us soldiers?" He frowned slightly, his eyes were wide in disbelief as he processed what had just happened. People tended to feel a little spaced out after talking with Hanji.

"Yup, it's just like I told you. We used to be soldiers and we used to kill man eating giants." We both began to walk to the P.E department, seeing as we both had basketball practice.

I sighed, recalling how I'd already told him so much, and yet it was only now that he actually considered it. Damn teachers, ruining children with their persuasive and brainwashing powers. I wished I had that kind of power.

"The Titans are the opposing football team, though, aren't they? Why would he have their merchandise?"

He looked up at the ceiling as we walked, the sounds of our shoes squeaking filled the empty halls. School had been over for some time now. Marco was wearing a rolled up plaid shirt with a black t-shirt and jeans. His bag with slung over his back and he tugged at the straps, allowing me to watch very closely at the movements of his freckled biceps. Where else were there freckles…? He licked his lips and leaned over to me, making me jump.

"Oh, uh, sorry, what?" I plastered a fake grin on my face.

As distracting as he was, I also had to focus on him, rather than what he was doing in my head. I sure was a healthy teenage boy all right.

"The merchandise, why would he have another school's stuff?"

"Uh, oh- because before, in our past life, she was like really and I mean really obsessed with the Titans and uh, yeah that's basically it."

"But weren't they supposed to be man eating monsters, according to you?"

"They were. Did you see how crazy she was? Do you even consider doubting me on this?" I raised my eyebrows and looked him in the eye. He turned away with a slight grimace.

"Crazy is an understatement. No-one normal could talk for that long and not pass out from lack of oxygen. And did you see how fast he spoke? I just nodded sometimes because I didn't even know what else to do."

I tilted my head. "What were you even in there for anyway?"

He groaned. "I was still mad and I kicked over a garbage can outside. I was made to clean it up by Mr Levi and then go to the headmaster. And tomorrow I get to help the janitor out with garbage can duties, yay." He slapped my shoulder. "And then there's you with "oh, I just saved my class from an evil teacher" and he didn't even blink!"

"He?"

"Yeah, it's Mr Zoe, right?" I looked at him blankly.

"You know what I kinda just assumed Hanji was a woman. I don't even know if that's a first or last name. Oh my god Marco, I'm regretting everything I've ever said in my life what even is this?!"

His laugh echoed out into the hallway as we reached the locker room, practice had already started so it was empty. Our only hope was that Erwin would understand that we'd been under the wrath of Hanji-the he/she I was now confused over.

I laughed with him, because it's just ridiculous how easily we could forget that we'd even fought and because you know, my life crisis was pretty hilarious.

Marco flung his bag onto the shoe rack and began to undress. I quickly checked my phone as a distraction. Surprisingly, I had a new message that I'd apparently gotten after school finished.

From: Sasha's waifu

Heyhey-so we figrd out hw 2 fix Marmar.

I sniggered at the nickname. I hoped it would stick for a while.

**Were gona hv a séance dude!**

I gawked at my phone with my mouth hanging open. What the actual fuck was he on?!


	10. Chapter 10

Marco finished changing into his shorts and t-shirt-while I successfully distracted myself (kudos to me for self control)-and sat down on the shoe rack bench, waiting for me to get a move on. Not that it mattered. We were late anyway. He scratched his neck at his hairline where his brown hair curled cutely, sighing through his teeth.

"I need to apologise, don't I?" he said in exasperation.

I wasn't sure if it was a rhetorical question or not. I just slipped on my shirt while I watched his back shift against the shoe rack pole, not saying anything. Geez, the things I admit to myself these days. I was completely acknowledging that I really liked that broad back of his.

He fiddled with the hem of his shirt and I sat down on the other side of the shoe rack, tying my laces up. I felt him glance at me, as though he'd been waiting for me to speak, but I didn't plan to.

Even though we'd been laughing a few minutes ago, things were beginning to sink in. Marco was an ass. Reiner had almost lashed out at him, and while I was pretty protective over Marco, I was definitely afraid that Reiner would beat the crap out of him. I was too biased to tell if he actually deserved it or not.

"… I've been really selfish. We barely even know each other and I've been horrible to you and your friends, let alone mine, and you even gave me a chance to be forgiven… Ah fuck, I really don't know how to do this, um…" he covered his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut as he planned his speech.

I sat up on the panelled wood, tucking my sneakers underneath me on the rack. I waited for him to go on.

"Right, well, I know I feel bad for calling Reiner queer. I honestly am a total dick for doing that, especially in front a whole class and…"

He turned around to face me, his brow slightly furrowed in his seriousness. I met his gaze and felt the heat rushing to my cheeks, the fluttering in my stomach rendering me unable to speak. I tried not to swoon, I really did.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you. And didn't tell you about Reiner. And tried to make you let me sit with your friends. But… I'd really like it if you forgave me." he blushed, looking up at me sheepishly. "No-one's ever really called me out before on doing that sort of thing, and I'm pretty sure everyone would appreciate one less bastard in the world. You don't… have to be my friend or anything…"

To think, I'd been more than desperate for him to be my friend, just as much as I also wanted him to remember me. I gulped, feeling my Adam's apple bob as he watched for my reaction with a guilty expression. To think he was asking to be my friend this time…

I had to snap out of it. Just because he was blushing and looking bashful, I couldn't let his tone and words sway me. If I couldn't be honest, then I'd not only be a bad friend along with Marco, I'd be an awful team captain. Lying would make you lose the trust of the other players. Down-sizing problems would make you lose a game.

I cleared my throat. "Alright. But you have to swear on your soul that you'll stop acting up. You've got to make it up to all the right people, too. Properly, with no excuses or whining or bitching."

I watched his freckled face grimace as he internally groaned. Then he gave me a reluctant, small smile.

"I will. I know I pretty much lied last time but I promise I honestly will. Karma's a bitch, after all. Fuck with people from our school and you get a night and day of talking to the head teacher." he rolled his eyes.

"Maybe you should apologise to the janitor too. His poor trash can, Marco." I shook my head at him in mock compassion.

"Yeah, I can't wait to help him with garbage can duties. It's going to be sooo much fun." he said sarcastically.

I stood up from the shoe rack bench and walked over to the locker room door, watching and loving the way he stood up; his shoulder blades form nicely through the fabric of his t-shirt, his clothes creasing at his joints, his freckled arms helping to lift himself off of the bench. I most definitely did not scream internally at the stiff groaning sound he made. I felt my eyes go wide when he swaggered up to me, wearing a smug smirk.

"I'm pretty sure staring at me isn't the best way to pick me up, horse boy." he hovered over me and I chuckled.

Pffft, I wasn't staring. I had been staring at his naked torso earlier; this was nothing compared to that. Wow, that actually sounded really creepy. Calm your horses, Kirstein.

I raised an eyebrow at him, matching his cockiness. "Well, it made you approach me, so I must be doing something right, Mar-Mar."

Even if I was a blushing mess for being caught out in my staring, I still won with the last word. A brilliant, genius word, I might add. Not to mention Marco blushed again at the nickname. Oh yes, that was definitely sticking around.

Here's a tip; don't make friends with idiots.

I'm being serious, you have a choice in who you approach and it's a damn good idea to consider what you're getting into before you start hanging out with them.

Well, in my case, maybe that only applied to the people in the gym hall.

Marco and I were happily walking along the yellow corridor (or, well, just walking normally. Although I was pretty happy that I'd made Marco bite his own words for once. AND blush.) and when we'd gotten into the gym hall, the lights had been turned off and it was completely silent until our squeaky shoes echoed in the large hall.

Fumbling around for the light switch that I knew to be next to the door, I ended up knocking into Marco who'd been trying to do the same.

"Ah shit, get your hands off my chest, pervert."

I flushed darkly and mumbled "I'm just trying to find the lights."

"That's nice, but they're on this side of the door, you dumb-ass."

"Marco, we just had this talk where you try to be nice-"

"Okay, okay I will, I'm sorry. Let's just… find the lights…"

Something caught the corner of my eye; a small, flickering light. No wait, a flame?! I spun my head around to see a whole area of candles, lighting up the bodies of dark hooded figures that stood behind them, all with their heads down and hands in their pockets, facing towards us.

"Are they… Satanists..?" Marco asked oh so brightly.

I leapt forward, storming towards them. "NO WAY IN HELL, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU GUYS DO TO MY TEAM I AM SO CALLING THE POLICE RIGHT AFTER I BEAT THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF-"

I was cut off by a laugh. Connie's laugh, to be precise.

Oh no.

That text.

Oh god no.

I reached for Marco's arms, his shoulders, anything, and tried to push him out the door while he protested.

"Marco you need to-"

A firm voice had us jumping out our skin.

"Both of you, over here onto the sheets. Stand before us. And uh, don't knock over any of the candles because if we knock them over and wax gets onto the floor-"

"Armin?!"

He looked up at us, tufts of blonde hairs spilling over his face, smiling innocently as he lifted his head up, revealing himself to be holding a board of some sort in his hands. His toothy smile was beginning to look really fucking creepy, like something out a horror movie.

"Just kidding…!" I faintly remembered the time he'd gone all weird after the perverted molester screwed him up in the head.

I scrambled to drag Marco out the door, feeling myself being pulled back by strong arms.

"Get off of me!" I heard Marco shouting at a bulky figure.

I twisted out of the arms I was being clutched in, moving as fast as I could towards Marco and ripped him apart from… Reiner?!

Reiner's hood had slipped up, letting me see the surprised expression on his face after I tore Marco from his grip and held Marco in my arms, focused on getting us out of this fucked up situation yet still thinking: "Fuck I'm holding him fuck his in my arms fuck I can feel his arms on mine shit his back is so wide and his ass is on my dick fuck fuck fuck I'm getting such a boner and I really shouldn't-"

Someone from behind clapped a hand on my shoulder and I gripped onto Marco tighter, who was panicking and frantically looking around the hall, my hands on his chest that was rising and falling quickly. A sigh brushed against my neck.

"I think we need to change the atmosphere. Horse face is shitting himself, and I don't think the school would appreciate shit and wax on the floor. It's specially made, you know. It costs more than what horse face is worth." There was smirk in his voice.

A few mumbles said they agreed with him, they agreed with damn fucking Jaeger, and after some footsteps and a click the hall was lit up by blinding florescent lights, making a few people groan. I felt a cold absence in my arms as Marco slipped out, not turning to look at me as he folded his arms angrily. Damn right he was angry, these little shits had better explain themselves.

A little while later, Marco and I found ourselves in the middle of a circle of the 104th trainee squad members. The lights had been switched off again, but at least I now knew what was going on and if anything, it was kind of exciting. Marco, however, was still grumpy from being scared.

"I'm not putting my hands anywhere near that board, Blondie. There could be evil spirits in it. The spirits of all the people you've killed."

Marco childishly tucked his knees into his chest, glaring at the Ouija Board in front of him and folded his arms around his legs. I sat on my knees and leaned forward on the sheet, feeling giddy as I waited for him to put his hands on the planchette (the triangular mover thing with the hole), not willing to do so myself until he did.

"Aw, come on Marco, he only killed one guy and he was asking for it." I grinned as he looked up at me in horror.

Oh, I definitely wanted a date with him that involved candles. Something smelled amazing in the hall, like some sort of aphrodisiac, and he looked fucking sexy in the dim, warm light. Thankfully it was dark enough so that no-one could see the hard on I'd been sporting since I'd grabbed him earlier. That incident would make for some great bed time material later.

Eventually, after I'd taunted him enough and the others around us were complaining about setting the fire alarm off if the candles went out, his hands grabbed mine and dived them onto the planchette. I bit my lip as I recovered from the mind-blowing electric shock of being touched by him, staring at the top of his head as he stared down and growled "So now what do we do?"

"Okay, well for one, you need to relax your grip; you don't need to hold hands or anything like that. We will though, and I'll chant a prayer of protection so you can get into the mood."

What mood? The mood where I wanted to bang the living shit out of Marco? Because I was already more than in that mood.

Disappointment slipped in when Marco moved his calloused fingers away from mine. His eyes looked up into mine, brown orbs dark and pupils dilated as he grimaced, wishing this would be over with already. I hoped this would never end, as cheesy as that sounds. I clamped my lips together, giving him a subtle nod. I closed my eyes.

Figures that Armin would be in the Occult Club. More so that he was the only member, besides Mikasa and Eren who sometimes helped him out. The smell hadn't been aphrodisiac, though once I'd found out it was sage I made a mental note to by the herb and try burning it later in my room. Hopefully I'd be able to convince my dad that I wasn't smoking drugs.

"Mmm."

I started getting drowsy, which was probably not what I was meant to be doing. I think Armin had mentioned meditating? I peeked through one eye at the board; nothing was happening. The chanting around us felt like a lullaby, seemingly distant as I sort of drifted to sleep. I was jolted awake as Armin asked a question.

"Hey, guys, you think you're ready?" He asked gently, his voice vibrating off of the yellow hall walls.

"Yeah." I replied breathlessly. I heard Marco hum in agreement beside me.

"Okay, how about you start off by asking if your past life's spirit is in the room?"

Before I could speak, Marco repeated the question. After a few seconds, I felt a jolt in my fingers and gasped, only to look down to see the jolt had been caused my fingers touching Marco's fingertips and that he was looking at me with a slightly pissed off expression. I smiled apologetically.

"Blondie, I don't think this is working. The thingy isn't moving. All that's happening is Jean trying to feel my fingers up because he has some kind of hand fetish-"

"I do NOT!" I ripped my hands away from the planchette, glaring at Marco.

"Oh, wow, you sound so convincing, Jean. You know, they say that when people talk formally after a confrontation they're lying…"

"Oh shut up Jaeger!" I sneered at him as he sat a little way behind Marco. "I bet this was your shitty idea in the first place and guess what? It's not even working!"

"H-hey! I thought it was a good idea, alright? Don't you want him to remember? Fuck you, dude."

Mikasa managed to stop us from fighting further. "Eren, you'll danger the area if you release negative energy into the circle. Cut it out, both of you."

She gave me a sharp look and I felt myself straighten up. Even though I'd long gotten over her, she still had an effect on me. I wasn't sure what kind, though. She sighed and looked to her side at Armin.

"Why don't we try the hypnosis? I reckon that'll trigger a memory much better."

He nodded. "Yeah, alright guys. Let's do that. We're only going to need Mikasa and Marco for this, so Jean, you can join the circle."

"Yeah, whatever. Let's just get this over with before the teachers find out." Marco huffed in annoyance.

"Oh, they know what we're doing. Well. I might have told them I needed to exorcise a ghost from the gym hall. It works for us either way. Though I have to pay the fines if candle wax gets on the floor." He pointed a finger in our direction as he glowered. "So when you move, you had better be darn careful."

I chuckled to myself and went to sit between Mikasa and Mina. Marco walked over to Mikasa and sat cross legged in front of her. I'd expected that I'd have to hold their hands like they'd done before, but as I looked around the circle of my hooded friends, I saw they'd all dropped their hands and were now watching Mikasa quietly.

After a few, long seconds into the "hypnosis", I was burning. From some alarmingly confusing jealousy, that is. Who was I more mad at? Marco, for being able to stare for a long time in a trance like state at Mikasa? Or Mikasa, for staring at Marco as though her eyes could make him do whatever she wanted him to? I kept my eyes on them, unable to tear my gaze away for fear they'd have an abrupt make out session if I let them out my sight. Mikasa was talking in monotone; "guiding Marco into a trance that would allow him to see his past life".

I was beginning to think like Marco, I was so ready to call bullshit on this idiotic ritual. The only reason I'd calmed down after being manhandled by Jaeger was because Armin had basically told me I'd be sitting next to Marco with no-one else to disturb us.

Everyone looked up to see the gym hall door open, letting in the light from the hallway. Marco and Mikasa tore their gazes from each other, much to my relief. I peered, seeing a teacher look in. Erwin, oh god. Something didn't feel right when his jaw dropped.

"Armin! I thought you got permission!" I hissed at him as began to scramble around, blowing out the candles.

Erwin strode in with an absolutely furious look on his face.

"Armin! Why didn't you wait for me? I wanted to see you exorcise the ghost!" Erwin, an adult, grown man, whined as he pouted at Armin.

Armin only tittered hesitantly in reply. I half groaned and half sighed a breath of relief. Like I said, don't ever become friends with idiots. But if you do, you'll be stuck with their sorry asses for quite some time. It might be worth it.

After Armin cleaned up in the hall, apologising to a huffy Erwin (I never realised he was such a man child), Marco and I went back into the locker room to get changed. He slammed his locker door shut, throwing his school bag on the bench.

"And to think I'd been trying so hard at basketball too. I was getting really pumped up and ready to-"

"Show off? Yeah I know how you feel. It sucks not to be the centre of attention, right Bodt?"

I crossed my legs over as I sat on the bench, having already changed and I was totally not anticipating Marco getting undressed. Nope, no sir-ee. He glanced over at me while he tugged his t-shirt off to pull on another one. Fucking hell, his nipples were a dark colour against his tan skin. And the boy had some damn attractive abdominals. How long ago had he started working on them?

"I didn't realise you were like that."

"Um, like what?" I pretended to flick through my phone, my thumb nail dragged across the screen.

"Okay well, for one; the fact that you have a hand fetish. Two, the fact that you cross your legs over like a girl and three… well, you were right. You're not quite as bad as me, but you are pretty much an asshole yourself."

"I told you I do NOT have a hand fetish. And sitting like this is comfortable, so fuck you." I flipped him my middle finger and he laughed as he finished dressing.

"But you'll admit you're an asshole?" he teased.

I shrugged at him. "I'm still not as bad as you."

"Yeah, but you'll fix that? Right? I mean, I sure hope you do."

"Mmm, well, I did promise the team that I'd whip your ass into shape."

"Oh my god, are you still going on about that? It's so embarrassing."

"As embarrassing as me calling you Mar-Mar?"

He groaned into his hands, flushing as he asked himself why I was so gay. I told him off for using the word as a slur.

"Sorry… It's a habit, a bad one. But… there's like more than one meaning to it?"

I snorted. "Well, you're using it in the way that means I'm a homosexual."

"Are you?"

This was… a chance? I could…tell him that I was gay, if only for him. But would he take it as a joke or a confession?

"Jean?"

I really didn't want to be rejected. That wasn't part of my plan. Friend zoning Jean Kirstein had happened once too many times already. Meaning once. There'd only time I'd ever confessed to someone. (I'm sure you can guess who).

If I did this, and he rejected me, I'd never have my best friend back. I'd be stuck with an asshole jock that would never remember the past life we'd had. I might never be able to speak to him again.

"N-not exactly. Nah, I'm straight, of course. I just like to mess with you, that's all."

With my breath stuttering, I looked into his eyes, seeing my expression in his dark eyes. It was saying "please, Marco, I need you to see I'm lying. Take the initiative because I am a weakling and a coward." The old Marco would have known what I was trying to say. I know he would have. God, I really needed him to remember, I needed to have my best friend back.

"Okay, if you say so. Tone it down a bit though, it's a bit awkward." he laughed.

God, why did he have to be so cute and laugh when he was breaking me?

No. You know what? Fuck him. Fuck him and his homophobia. He totally didn't deserve me.

"Sure thing." I heard the disappointment in my voice as it wavered. Not that he noticed, of course.

Marco walked to the door, holding it open as he expected me to follow him. I did, following him out the school, peeking down the hallway to see Armin and Erwin chatting. Probably about ghosts and stuff, judging by the way Erwin was looking down excitedly at the blonde boy.

For the first time, Marco was actually alright with walking home with me as we made our way out the back door of the P.E department. He walked beside me, unlike all the other times.

Talking about how pretty Mikasa's dark eyes were.

It hurt.

I lied to him, telling him I needed to go uptown and we walked off in different directions-he even fucking waved goodbye to me-and I pulled out my phone, finding Connie's number.

"Hey, who's there?" I heard the smile in his voice.

His happy voice wasn't enough to calm me down as my phone shook in my trembling hand. I lifted the other to cover my mouth.

"F-fuck, Connie, I fucked up really bad."

"Jean… are you crying?"


	11. Chapter 11

_Uwah, sorry for the random scribbles you got last time :/ I'm uploading from my tablet, so I can't see what happens to the text. Enjoy some brotp feels though!_

Lately, I'd been into a lot of… sappy love songs, so to speak. Especially after that diner disco a few nights ago. But I also liked my fair share of pop-punk, and Bowling For Soup was at the top of that list-now don't judge me, they have some good tunes, alright?

And they were right, Even now, only two weeks into my high school life and I could already see how high school would never end. An average person did some paperwork, whether it was for school, college or your desk job at the office, got their pay in some form, then went home so they could do it all again. So they could stay alive. And I'd be doing that for the rest of my life.

I was pretty lucky though, so I got the prize toy in the cereal packet: friends. Well, I'm not usually lucky, but I guess in this department I was, considering how difficult it is for me to make new friends. Not that these guys were new to me or anything. But I got the chance to get to know them better this time without a war interfering. And right now with the state I was in, like some teenage drama queen, I was past the point of being capable of even looking at a Titan, let alone being in a war full of them.

Connie knew this, so while I walked down the broken and cracked path that lead uptown, I listened to the loud, pissed off rambling in my ear that had calmed me down a bit and sniffed through my runny nose every now and then, but not so loud that I missed his reassurances.

"Let me tell you something, Jean, I knew that guy was an asshole the moment I knew something wasn't right about him, when he was acting like a non playing character and didn't remember us and everything."

So had I. I'd known from the first time I saw him that something was missing, and very wrong. That knowledge may have been furthered when he slammed me into a wall, with his incredibly strong arms… No Jean; you're mad at him and he's an oblivious dick. Just listen to Connie.

"Maybe he was never Marco to begin with, I think he isn't one of us anymore and it's just his body that got reincarnated, and not his soul or whatever."

I shook my head, despite the fact he couldn't see me.

"Connie," my voice had already become rough and it scraped the back of my throat, giving me a throbbing headache. "I don't think it's like that, he's… he's still Marco, his personality is a bit different but he's still himself and I'm positive he'll remember some day. Maybe… we just didn't know him well enough? Also, what if something happened to him in this life and it changed him?"

Connie sighed through the speaker, causing a quiet buzz until he pulled away from the microphone on his end.

"Listen, you said he didn't get the hint that you were hurting? That you were lying about… being straight? Actually," his voice raised in confusion. "When did you stop being straight? Didn't you like Mikasa for, like, ever?"

I rolled my eyes and frowned silently, waiting for him to catch on. Because if this guy didn't know where I was coming from, I'd be…

"Oh. Oh, OH! Okay… um. Didn't see that one coming. I mean, I always thought you guys were a bit… but I never… Well. When you told me he hurt you I was just going to give him some heavy torture and deliver his fingernails to you. But now I think I' going to send his head in a package. How's that sound? Is your address the same as before? Where should I dump the rest of his body?"

I wiped the back of my hand across my watering eyes, chuckling quietly. I pulled my bag securely onto my shoulders so it wouldn't fall, continuing my aimless trudge in the direction of town.

"Ask Siri," I told him. "She's surprisingly accurate and doesn't ask questions."

A thought suddenly occurred to me. Was Siri considered a woman just because Siri's voice sounded like that? Siri was also programmed to have a lower pitched voice…

"Hey, Connie… is Hanji a man or a woman? Or something in between?"

"Um…" I could practically hear Connie gaping at the phone in horror and I laughed, louder this time even though my head was pounding and I still felt like shit.

"Okay, I'm just going to ignore that.. Whatever that was and pretend it never happened. It was never there. So back on topic, because wow did we get off course" I groaned but he ignored me.

"I'm pretty sure that Marco… yeah, Marco would have known whether you were lying or not. I tried lying to him once about Sasha stealing food and he flat out asked me why I would lie to him. He's just that naïve, expecting people to tell him the truth and throws a tantrum when he doesn't get it dished out to him on a silver platter." I could tell he was rolling his eyes with the way his voice began to seep in sarcasm.

"He's just that good at reading people, that's his thing. If this Marco can't do that, then he isn't the real deal. Okay? Look, just come to my house, I'm on fifth street at number eighteen. I'll… I dunno, I'll feed you ice cream and let you cry grossly? Sasha hasn't been over in a while, so I've still got half a tub left, and it's the quality kind." he finished his sentence tunefully.

I took in my surroundings; finding that instead of going to town, I'd turned left and had ended up going to fifth street anyway.

"Hmm, well while I was wandering mindlessly like a ghost, I sort of found myself on the block next to your place; have your door open soon. Okay?"

He cackled loudly in my ear and I pulled my phone away from me, not minding it but not really, I dunno, prepared for his enthusiasm, I guess. I was still pretty depressed, after all.

I walked down the street with the grass at the side of the path becoming less green and more worn out like an old carpet, probably from all the kids playing on it (my guess was Connie played on it too). The sky was surprisingly light and the street lamps weren't on yet, though it was still only August so I don't know why I expected it to be darker at half five in the evening. I put the phone back to my ear, just in time to hear Connie talk again.

"See? We're so close already that your subconscious mind just knows to come running to the Con-Man. That's how it is between, alright, man? We're friends, so you can come by any time, preferably when I'm in, of course. Wasn't really like that before, huh? Since we're buddy-buddy now, I guess I can tell you you've become less of a stick in the butt. Yeah, you're alright."

"Heh, you're not too bad yourself baldy."

Connie's voice dropped. "Call me that and I'll christen you Horseface."

I shrugged. "Everyone does anyway. People who don't know me casually go by and go "Hey Horseface". Thanks to that stupidly influential, suicidal bastard." I sighed sharply, not wanting to talk about him since Jaeger cheese-grated my nerves to no end. "Listen, I'm gonna hang up now, I'm close to your house. Get the ice cream ready."

"I found a movie while I was talking. We're having an Annie Hall night."

"Isn't that a break-up movie?"

"It tells you that life isn't as bad as you first thought, so I thought it'd be appropriate for a pessimist like you."

"You're the man Connie."

"At least I'm not He-Man. Dear lord, imagine all the jokes we'd have had in the barracks if we'd had that cartoon back then. Poor Armin."

I managed a small laugh before quickly telling him bye and hanging up. I slipped my phone into my trouser pocket with a sigh, which sounded like a happy sigh, or no, a content sigh. Yeah that was the word. Content. Which I liked to think was apathy, but with a little extra "this is alright" factor to it.

Connie was great. That's all there was to it, he was just a really great guy. Although, people had a tendency to pass him off as a joker just because he was short and never took things very seriously, plus, he wasn't exactly the smartest guy on the block. I felt like he was a different kind of smart though, he was a bit like Marco in the way that he could understand people.

He knew what things were going too far and would offend people; he could tell when people were worried when people just wondered what their deal was. He didn't think about that though. If someone was worried, to Connie, they just were and he would do his best to make them more comfortable.

I reached Connie's block; his house was terraced and looked almost identical to the other houses with their cream painted walls, but the things in his garden made it unique, made it "Connie's place". I walked up the path to his house, saw the porch light was on, and opened the latch on the wooden gate.

While walking up the few, huge steps, I saw his latest wood carving leaning against the fence at the right side of the garden that was all patio and concrete. It was the Survey Corps badge, the wings of freedom, with a shield shape as a background. The sections of the wings were just wonky enough for someone to take one look at it and say "yup, that's Connie's alright." It was all a light oak colour, since it hadn't been painted yet. I'd offered to, one lunch time when he brought it up, but I'd never gotten round to it. Maybe I would tonight.

I reached the door, the light shining brightly at the side, over staging the orange light of the sunset, and pulled down the handle so I could walk in. Connie flew towards me in his joggers and t-shirt as I tugged my shoes off to leave them at the entrance. He bro-fisted me and slapped me on the back with a huge, cheesy grin.

"It's been aaaages since you came to my house man!"

"I'm pretty sure I've never been to your house Connie…"

He ran down the hallway, into the small kitchen that I could see from here was a homey, yellow colour and returned carrying a small Boxer in his arms.

"This is Bozo. My lovely pup. Bozo, SPEAK."

The dog barked at me, showing me a toothy, brown eyed grin with his tongue lolling out. I gave it a small pat on the head, not really wanting to touch him since dogs made me nervous, but thankfully he didn't bite.

Connie placed at kiss on the dog's head (EW) and let him down on the ground to let him trot away. He whizzed behind me and pushed me by the backpack into the living room, almost sending me crashing into the glossy, dark brown door before I opened the golden door knob just in time.

"I didn't know you had a dog, you never mentioned it."

Connie shoved me onto the black, leather couch then went over to the flat screen TV on the cabinet, searching through his DVD collections in the compartment at the side. He glanced at me, giving me an "I don't know" hand gesture.

"People normally assume I have a dog. I must just seem like a dog person." I nodded.

He held up a DVD with a look of glee on his face. "I found Annie Hall. I'm gonna put this in and get food while the adverts are still going."

He jogged out the living room while I called out "Don't forget the ice cream!" and settled into the couch. Usually I felt really weird about going into people's houses, not nervous, just weird, like I wasn't allowed to touch anything. But not here. This place was small but it was inviting.

The country style of the room, the little ornamental knick-knacks on the book shelf in the corner of the room and… I don't know, the atmosphere of the whole house just made me feel comfortable, not weird. I put my feet on the couch, snuggling into the arm rest while absent-mindedly watching the adverts.

Hmmm. When I became I graphic designer I would totally do better than these guys at producing adverts. Just watch me. I smiled smugly to myself.

Connie came in just as the second advert finished, cradling the glorious ice cream (Ben and Jerry's Phish Food, oh hell yes) and a litre bottle of coke. He lifted the green plastic cups that were holding on to his fingers and I took them from them, setting them on the dark brown coffee table in front of me.

We watched the movie and pretty much talked all the way through. I loved the dialogue, but felt the plot could be worked on. Connie just liked acting out the characters.

A little while later when the movie was over, I looked out the window and saw it had finally gotten dark. And despite having eaten a shit load of ice cream, my stomach growled.

"Hey man," Connie lifted his head from the back cushion. "Do you want to stay for dinner? My mom's gonna be back at seven, that's when we normally have it anyway." I nodded, and he told me we could go to his room.

On my way up the stairs, he asked from the kitchen "Do you want chocolate milk?"

I rolled my eyes, laughing as I replied "What am I, your son?" and texted my dad to say that I'd be staying for a while at Connie's.

Again with the surprises, my dad actually liked Connie. Hell, who didn't like Connie? Well… I suppose I could think of one person. And that dislike seemed mutual on Connie's behalf too.

After we'd eaten dinner with his mum and older brother (who were both as hilarious as Connie, by the way, the Springer family is Top Notch. Though his dad was away at work so I don't know if that applies to him too) I was finally driven to talk about "he who shall not be named" (sadly, not Voldemort).

I huddled into my legs, sitting with Connie on his Marvel covered double bed. His room was boyish, like I'd expected, with band posters and a random, deflated basket-ball on the floor. Actually, don't make me tell you about the floor. Everything was more teenager-like than my sophisticated bedroom décor (blame Louise, okay?).

"Connie," I whined, staring at the CD rack beside his bed. "I feel like a girl talking about boys like this."

He leaned back against the wall with his legs crossed, raising a grey eyebrow at me.

"Big girls don't cry, so you're obviously not a girl."

I hid my face in my knees. "I don't… Ugh. I like him, okay? You know that, or at least it sounded like you did anyway." The heat coloured my cheeks, making me clam up in my speech.

Connie looked at me, waiting for me to continue. Asshole. I sighed, rubbing my thighs through my jeans.

"He's an asshole, everyone knows that… But he's also kind of alright? Like he's good with kids, he's funny, he can cheer me up… I just, I don't want him to… not like me, I guess. And I definitely don't want him talking about Mikasa. Or to think I'm just messing about with him like a friend." My eyebrows furrowed. "I sure threw myself in a ditch there by telling him I was, huh."

He stared up at the white ceiling. "You've just got to get closer to him, or show him you're worth dating. Both, probably. Do you still want him to remember you?" I nodded. "Maybe you should focus on that first, just to get it out of the way. And who knows, maybe he'll start liking you more after he remembers. But it might not be in that way, okay?"

I would have given him a hug but... Yeah guys don't really do that. Plus, Connie's a very "no homo" kind of guy. I smiled at him to show my gratitude.

"Also, that guy, by the sounds of it, is really just stupid, so you have to make it obvious that you like him. Like, don't go about DOING things to show him, just tell him when you get the courage."

I sat up, folding my legs underneath me.

"Okay. I'm fine, no more boy talk. I need something to distract me now."

He scratched his head, pursing his lips. "Ah!" He sat upright, his eyes glowed with excitement. "There's going to be an away game soon, in a week or two. Uh, maybe next month?"

"Oh wow, really? Where at?"

After a while of talking, I eventually got bored (truth be told, it was because Connie didn't have any game consoles, despite the huge fucking TV in the living room) and I got a text while I was walking home in the lamp lit streets.

From: The Fake Marco Polo

"So, I heard some1 shovd pencil stuff on ur desk. Revenge? :]"

See? It's just impossible to be mad with someone like him. I also wanted to throw a boulder at him at the same time. Figures


	12. Chapter 12

_I apologise for the entirety of the chapter, slightly._

Wow. No wonder I woke up late on Thursday morning. I'd somehow survived a) The weirdest dream ever b)A fight with the Fake Freckled Jesus c)Hanji, and their current non-binary status in my mind d)A fucking séance and on top of all that; I'd gotten through a slight breakdown, with the help of Connie, of course.

As I recovered on Wednesday night, I'd laid in my bed, staring up at the ceiling like teenagers do in the movies and it's all deep and morose and stuff, and all I could wonder was; "How in holy hell did Connie get back home so quickly?" But then again, a better question would've been; "Since when did Armin, and Mikasa and everyone at that, get into magic and séances?" Plus, they must've been there for ages setting up all those candles, despite how ridiculous it was in the first place. It was nice to know they cared. In their own "special" way.

So yes, it wasn't surprising in the least when I had to run out of the house and down seventh street anime style; with a crepe sticking out the side of my mouth(it feels good to be French), my glorious, golden hair whipping around in the leaf ridden wind…

Ah, I should mention that I didn't actually fit the "jock" stereotype that Rico had given me. A real jock wouldn't have been late for school. They probably just wouldn't have gone to school… for the third day in a row or something like that. I'm not a jock so I don't really know if that's how they do things.

What was surprising though, was seeing the freckled "he who shall not be named" on my way past my usual pit stop corner shop (which I didn't have time to visit. Sorry Suzy; I love you really).

Now.

To be or not to be?

Angry at him, that was.

An oblivious dick?

Yes, yes he was.

Wearing a black t-shirt with a batman logo and brown skinny jeans that hugged his ass very, very well, a fact that I approved of immensely?

See answer as above.

The only downside was that his bag hid the view of his back and ass, but that was inevitable, so it seemed…

He turned around, as if sensing my lustful/wistful staring and he actually waited for me to catch up, which I did.

"Hey Jean! This is really convenient, I was just going to text you to see where you were." He grinned at me as though he was glad to see me. I wish.

"You don't usually text me first. Or ever, really."

Maybe it was time to show Mr Bodt just what being Jean Kirstein meant; and it meant having a bad habit of provoking people into fights, blaming it on others and stewing over anything and everything like the sulky teenager that I was. Connie, Reiner, Armin; all of them and the others knew how I was, and they still liked me-I should hope-no matter how grumpy I was.

I was still not quite over yesterday either, not that he would know. Or care. But he knew he needed to make up for what he did to Reiner, and me. And he should have guessed that that's why I was acting grouchy, even if that wasn't the full reason.

"And I've never seen you during the mornings. Do you avoid me or something?" I glared at him as he walked beside me.

He looked at me, both of us still walking in the direction of school past white walled, burgundy tiled houses with ever so perfect gardens. Connie's garden was way better, I thought so anyway.

"I usually leave later in the morning, since I don't live as far from school as you do. I don't avoid you. I mean, as annoying as you can be I don't actively avoid you."

He was frowning slightly with those dark eyebrows of his, as if he was actually worried about what I thought of him. Of course he worried about what people thought about him. He had to make sure no-one thought he was gay, after all. And I'd told him he had to be nice, so maybe he was trying to suck up to me by lying and making himself look innocent in the act.

Well congratulations Bodt; you win first prize in the Façade Game.

"And technically, I texted you first last night… though you never replied. So what do you say? Are you up for revenge on pencil stuff guy?"

We crossed the road using the stoplights to get on the same side as the school that was now in view. Okay so maybe he actually did live closer to the school.

"His name's Sam. We were friends for a while, me, him, Connor and James. But Connor's crazy, to put it simply. I already got back at them for when they spread rumours about me. They were just doing it out of spite because I started avoiding them, since Connor tried to shove a controller up my ass like the crazy assed bitch he is. But it looks like they just don't learn."

Marco stared at me, his eyes were wide. They were usually quite wide, a nice brown colour and big, but that's besides the point. "Are you serious? Why would he do that?"

"Apparently me complaining is just that annoying. I am aware you also find me irritating, but can you please refrain from putting-"

"Hey I would never do that!"

I rolled my eyes. "Uh-huh."

"No, really! I deal with kids three times a week, I know how to handle annoying. And just… wow. You certainly make some interesting friends in your spare time, man."

It explained his patience, the kid dealing business. I know I couldn't handle a guy like me flirting with me and doing everything to piss me off. I kinda had to give him credit for that.

"Why do you work at a family restaurant if you think kids are annoying?"

He shook his head while smiling dreamily and… Oh god. His eyes were glowing like Hanji's did when they were about to talk about Titans.

"Sometimes kids are pretty annoying, what with them crying a lot and generally being a bit difficult"

A BIT? I lived with a five year old; he knew NOTHING about difficult.

"But no, I absolutely LOVE kids."

I believed him; when the freckled Jesus glows like that-even the fake Marco polo- he is basically revealing his shining halo, his pure aura, his kindred SOUL.

Also, he sounded really excited.

"Remember back when we were kids and the girls would be all like 'I wanna have five million kids and a treehouse when I grow up!' That was me. It still is, kind of. I'm either gonna knock up a girl with Octuplets in her genes, you know, twins but like there's eight of them, or I'm going to take over or open an orphanage. I suppose I could adopt, but I think parenting all of the children would be way more fun."

What the actual fuck? There was no way I was going to be able to name eight kids, let alone an orphange-ful of them. Although, some of them would already have names I suppose. And I'd have to live with him in his workplace and ALL of those kids?

Dear god. One man is already one child too many, or so Louise says.

"Jean, you've gone really pale all of a sudden…"

"Damn right I have. Octuplets? Seriously?"

"I heard in the news once that there was someone with nine babies… I'm not sure what the name for that is though."

Oh my god. "Oh my god." And he fucking laughed as we walked through the path at the back of the school that led to the P.E department.

Baby loving Bodt. Okay. I hadn't really been expecting that. It was kinda like being told I was going to be a dad. But at least it had shocked me out of my grumpiness.

Wait, how had he even…?

So, the first part of the plan for revenge took place within my homeroom class, which was empty as we'd somehow gotten in early.

Oh, the possibilities of an empty room and two totally gay guys who definitely had it bad for each other.

"Jean, oh Jean please… I want more!" I heard him pant to me. We hid under the teacher's desk, banging on the wood while I-

"Jean, I really feel like you're being dramatic about this; the background music of 'Mission Impossible' really isn't necessary."

Aaaand there went my fantasy. I stopped walking around the deserted room and Marco looked back to see me seething.

"If you don't let me hum James Bond, I swear I will sing every version of 'It's a small world'. Every. Version. Especially the Belgian version. You say you're Canadian? The French one too."

I liked the fact that he didn't doubt that I was fully capable of doing just that. I knew he thought this because his face paled and he said "Okay. James Bond it is then. Feel free to continue humming."

He moved swiftly to the teacher's desk, our revenge plan in the motions, and he asked me to close the door behind me. I swung it shut with a loud bang and followed him to the desk.

He glared at me, freckles twitching like angry rabbit whiskers. "I didn't say bang the fucking door Jean, do you want us to get cau-"

"Hey Marco," I raised an eyebrow and sauntered up the desk, standing with my hands on the edge flirtatiously. "If you were a door I'd bang you aaall night long."

His shoulder's slumped and he lowered his eyelids as if to say "I am so done with your shit" (that look was basically becoming his version of my "What the fuck, Connie?" face.).

He sighed in irritation while he looked for the required folder. "If you did that just to make that joke, I'm completely blaming you for this if we get caught."

I moved round to his side, finding the blessed paper we needed to write on to make this plan play out. I smirked at him.

"No you won't."

He sighed again. "Ah, you got me there Jean. Fifty points to Kirstein, whoop whoop, he hit the bulls-eye."

"They're gonna do it Marco, they're gonna read it out." I whispered to the freckled boy in the assembly hall seat next to me.

"I know I know I think I'm gonna burst with anticipation." He bounced subtly in his seat as he whispered back.

It was assembly during second class, and Hanji stood at the lectern, holding various bits of paper in their hands as they spoke with a bubbly tone. (Yes, I'm just going to keep using "they". I trust no-one.)

"Right so, achievements, we can do that in a second… Oh yeah! So the basketball team- you know, Maria's Monsters- them guys are having an away game in two weeks, was it?"

They glanced at Erwin who nodded from where he stood with the other teachers at the side of the hall.

"Right! And it looks like they'll be up against Rose Academy, isn't that a shocker? Rose is really good, and their players are simply magnificent. But it looks like they'll manage it just fine, they've got their Team Captain Jean Kirstein helping them out, ain't that right?" They winked at me and I gave a small smile back. No, I didn't turn red. Not at all…

"He's pretty young to be a captain isn't he? That's what I thought, but Erwin said he'd seen him play in middle school and he was the star basket ball player where he was, so he's always been pretty good at handling balls, wouldn't you say?"

As soon as Hanji realized the connotations of what they said, they coughed, hiding a laugh most likely (bitch) and continued talking while I tried to melt in my seat. Marco was shaking with quiet, incurable laughter. I didn't need to look around to know that Jaeger was probably laughing at me to. Everyone was laughing.

I guess that's one way to come out…

"I-in other news… Right; I'm just gonna go onto achievements now since there's not many of them… Because you guys don't do anything useful in your time and prefer to jerk off and paint your nails…" Hanji shuffled the papers around.

With a jolt, I felt something on my thigh; Marco was grasping onto me excitedly, shaking my leg and biting his lip as he gazed at Hanji, eyes so wide with excitement I thought he'd explode. My breathing totally didn't hitch. I chuckled quietly, and joined my best friend in his enthusiasm. And that's all there was to it.

Oh, who am I kidding. I had to move slightly so his hand wasn't so fucking close to my groin and bit the inside of my lip while carefully not looking at him. What-the-freaking-shit-what-do-I-do, what do I doooo?

"First up, we have… Connor Jefferson, and he…" Hanji frowned at the paper then raised an eyebrow.

"He's collected all of his stickers in his "Ultimate My Little Pony" sticker book. Um.. Well done..? Thanks for sharing that. Next up is James Greg, and he tells us he's upped a grade in.. belly dancing class? And he'll be taking a class this winter in his basement? Oh wow, that… now that's something, congratulations, James. And finally, Sam Peterson…" She glanced at me for a second then looked back at the paper. So she did know it was me.

"He says he finally met his internet friend after a few months of organising a charity, and recently decided to meet with one another last week after raising a few hundred dollars together. Ah but, that part's all scribbled out and afterwards it says;

"Never mind. He turned out to be a forty year old plumber with a lot of hair on his balls."

Now, I'd say meeting with distant internet friends is quite the accomplishment, as well as raising money for that charity. But what's really interesting is how he found out that he had too much pubescent hair in that area." Hanji smiled cheerily, then left the lectern, holding the paper and waved the students goodbye.

Did I mention that as well as being able to put up with them, I freaking love Hanji? Because it's times like these that I just do.

Hanji let the door swung shut behind them. The hall was silent, apart from a few giggles that were soon stifled by Levi's glaring from the sidelines. I felt Marco's hand leave my thigh and I gave it a low five. Because hell YES was this how revenge should go. It meant that they were down and would STAY down.

They'd need to; their social lives were basically dead and they'd need a low profile from now on.

Can I just mention that this was my idea? I don't want SOMEbody taking all the credit for my idea.


	13. Chapter 13

"There ain't no lover like the one I got;"

My singing echoed the room of cubicles and urinals where I'd gone to avoid, well, everyone, really. Not in a bad way, more like in the way that celebrities have to avoid the Pap's; it's nothing personal, in fact it can be pretty flattering. I thought so anyway.

"Ain't no lover like the one I got."

I winked at myself in the mirror, the wetness of my hands spraying as I mimed shooting the glass. There was no point in using the hand-dryer because my hands would dry before the thing even turned on. I subtly altered the lyrics, because Jean gives himself what he wants.

"He and I had a brand new start, gotta give him all my love~"

Me? Pumped up? Well… only because I was the mystery man now known as "#Maria'sPrankster2K13". Word spread around fast in this tiny school in Trost. As in, it hadn't even been half an hour since the assembly.

I was the valiant student, bestowed by Twitter a truly honorable title that I would one day boast about to my less successful friends at a penthouse party, because even when you're out of school your reputation as a high-school-er lives on, 'til death do you and the rep' apart. I was the kind of person, who would make a promise like that and keep it, due to my pathetically amazing memory.

Other than that, I was busy also thinking about Connie's advice-the guy should just leave school and become a therapist, or no wait he needs to go to school to do that (he was not allowed to miss another day of school ever again, I'd make sure of that too)-and although it was some awesome advice, I found myself steering away from it. Only slightly though. And it was just because I wanted to get Marco to like me sooner rather than later.

His hand on my thigh this morning? That was normal for the Bodt; he always was one of those touchy-feely guys, and I knew this since he often-he had often-given me hugs that I begrudgingly accepted because he was soft and nice, etc. Roaming hands brought a roaming mind when it came to Jean Kirstein… So unsurprisingly, I was a little distracted from coming up with "#MakeMarcoRemember" ideas.

My singing stopped just as said guy walked into the bathroom, toilets, whatever you want to call it-it's still a stinky shithouse-and gave me a small but friendly grin-I was still trying to get used to him being nice since something magical had happened to him overnight (WAIT THE SÉANCE) - and waved, dodging a suspicious puddle, most likely the same suspicious puddle from earlier that week, on his way to a urinal.

My heart plummeted in embarrassment; I gripped onto the edge of the basin and my back tensed up as I faced away from him. I was SO glad that he couldn't see me pulling my awkward "freaking out" face. It wasn't attractive, even if it was a split second long. A split second TOO LONG, I think you'll find.

What are you supposed to do when a guy you like whips out his penis when in the same room as you? Granted, he was using it to go to the toilet, but, like, in porno, wasn't there scenes where a situation like this would lead to an impromptu blowjob?! Also, where the hell do you look? The sound of him pissing broke through my inner monologue. Nopenopenope-

With a quiet, frustrated groan I decided to just avoid the entire situation, neglecting my wet, soapy hands that needed drying but could do without, and made a beeline for the door on my left. I had my hand curled around the door handle when I heard:

*diminuendo of the sound of pee*

*zip*

"Hey Jean wait up, won't you?"

A patter of footsteps and tap water turning on soon followed, meanwhile I was stuck standing there, holding onto the door like an idiot because I was a coward and far too scared to let myself do…anything, if I was being honest. "Anything" was a very vague thing, as in "Jean, don't do anything to fuck this, whatever it is, up". But it seemed to be enough because I turned to see Marco up close behind me-it would've looked VERY suggestive in another situation-and he gestured for me to open the door that I was currently blocking.

I don't think I fucked up because a few minutes later, we found ourselves hiding in Marco's bat cave (he was wearing an appropriate t-shirt, how cool) and it felt really weird not seeing his friends in here with him. Hmm, are ex-friends a thing? He sat beside me on the red tiled steps, leaning forward so he could rest his face in his hand and-hahrlgh, oh, jeez, that was cute, the way it smooshed up half his face. Heh, heheh, I seriously felt the need to hide my face because this was slightly too much-wait, what was I talking about?

Oh, right, so he was sitting on the step behind me, I was sitting down too, obviously and uh, god he was so freaking close, I really wanted to cuddle him, the memory of him hugging me was seriously vivid right then-

He glanced over at me worriedly. "Jean, are you okay?" His sociable attitude that he'd been sporting since that morning was weirding me out, which was probably, unbelievably ironic. Marco had always been really social, even with me-perhaps especially so, just… not in this life.

"I was just going with the flow before, but now you actually do look like a horse. A horse that's about to sneeze or throw up."

How charming.

There he was; there's the Bodt I had come to know and love, um, well, like. (Okay, so… Sometimes I'd go all out in my mind and party, hell I fucking raved in there half the time, about how much I liked the guy, and other times I would clam up and hide every existing memory of that fact.)

I sighed, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. I reached a hand up to my pale face, rubbing at my cheek while looking at him with what I hoped was fear and worry.

"Do I really? Do I honestly look like a horse? I mean, I know it's always girls that get a bit self conscious when they're teens, but I've been told by so many people that I look… I look like a horse," I pretended to tear up.

"And I ain't never gonna get laid if I look like Black Beauty!…But without the beauty…'cause I'm a guy and horses aren't exactly beautiful? Like, what's with that? I'd rather look hot, if I'm being honest with you. Am I even remotely attractive, Mar-mar? Or have I been given equestrian features that I am doomed with until I pay for painful, heart-breaking surgery that most likely won't work?"

"Uh…" He glanced at me in confusion, raising a dark eyebrow. "I don't know… I'm not really the best person to go to about stuff like that."

"Like what, pep talks?"

"…Well, just advice in general, really."

I spun around, putting my hands on his step and stared at him.

"Dude, you're like, the best of the best to go to for advice. You always have been, and I seriously doubt that that would've changed in any shape or form."

He scratched his nose and sniffed, looking away from my intense gaze that totally wasn't me ogling him.

"Nah. I'm not. You would be, but you lecture too much for it to sound like advice."

"What do you mean nah?!"

"I mean… nah? Nope? No… sir-ee? I'm not sure if I can explain it better than that, I'm just crap at giving people advice."

Marco Bodt? Incapable of giving advice? HA. That's completely wrong. He pretty much had been the unofficial counselor of the 104th Trainee Squad. He'd told me about comforting Daz, several kids that came up to him and started talking about things ranging from mental disorders, to people they had crushes on, to their reputation, even though he barely knew him. He'd helped me countless times as well. I supposed that maybe things weren't like that now, but he'd still be good at helping people out, right? Why wouldn't he be?

"You used to help me all the time with Mikasa." I told him, turning around again, folding my arms angrily.

"I helped you…?" he frowned until the realization set in. "Oh, you mean you liked her, and I helped you?"

"Basically. But I'm over her. Do you…?" Bluntness gets answers, you see. Although… maybe that sounded a bit out of place. IDEK.

He leaned his side against the metal banister, gazing into space longingly. "I don't think I've ever liked anyone. Apparently when you do, you just know, and I haven't felt something like that before." He blushed, as if he just understood that he'd shared something personal with me.

"Hmmm."

I wouldn't be the better man; I actually was really relieved that he didn't like Mikasa, and I didn't know what I would have done if he said he did. I couldn't really imagine them together anyway… Mika-Marco. No. It didn't have a ring to it, not like, say… Mar-Jean. Perfect, Mar-Jean had the perfect sound to it. We could be called Margarine as a nickname.

However, I was a bit disappointed that he'd never liked anyone; half because it meant he didn't like me-okay, maybe more than half- and half because having a crush was actually pretty awesome.

It was only painful if you got in over your head, or if they didn't like you back.

"Well, I'll come to you if I ever-"

The door behind us flung open, making us both jump and I gasped. Marco stumbled in an attempt to stand up, ready to run should it be a teacher, which it was. But they were wheezing far too loudly for them to try and tell us off for going to the Forbidden Stairwell of St. Maria's.

He was about to sprint over us, most likely about to leap down the stairs four at a time, then his tired, hazel eyes focused on us and he fell back slightly. He combed fingers through his mousy brown hair, using the other to lean on the railing above Marco. Poor Marco was grimacing in fear; he totally was still such a goodie two shoes.  
"Hanji…" he huffed hopefully. "Where is it?"

I shrugged at him apologetically. "Sorry Mr Moblit, we haven't seen Hanji. Well we have, the other day and it wasn't really that great an experience-"

"Okay, sorry, I'd love to talk but this is pretty important so I got… I gotta go." I think I heard him screaming in agony after the door closed behind him, leaving me and Marco alone again.

I looked at the swinging door behind us, Marco did the same with sympathy all over his features. Me… Well, I did pity the poor, flustered guy. Some things never changed.

"Being a headmaster's pet must be hell."

"Yup."

It was something simple; he'd gone over this with me, telling me how much he had to do this, that he'd do it because it was important to him, not just because it was important for it was still simple, until Marco saw our lunch table and went into a very uncharacteristic panic.

"No, Jean, it's bad enough that I tried to make you guys sit with me-"

"I spent break with you earlier, I'm inviting you this time-"

"And a lot of people really, and I mean really don't like me over there-"

"True, true; but I'm sure that apology you promised can change that."

He continued to struggle in my grasp on his shoulders as I tried to push him to our table; his warm fingers tearing at my hand were sending these amazing jolts up my arm that had me wishing we could do this all day.

"Chill man, it's not like they bite. Well, maybe only when food is around. Connie can be surprisingly protective of his food while Sasha just eats it out your hand like a seagull."

"They might think I'm food, I'm being fed to the lions here!"

I shook my head, rolling my eyes as I continued to shove him along and he comically let me in mock defeat.

"I bet they're cannibals…"

I paused dramatically, and then continued walking and pushing.

"Jean," his voice rose fearfully. "Why aren't you denying it? I don't want to be eaten!"

I froze.

He slipped out of my loose grip, trudging in front of me with slumped shoulders.

"Fine, fine, I did say I'd say sorry. I must change for the better, a positive character arc, I think it's called. Things won't ever be the same."

I hesitated in answering. "Hey…" I said quietly. "Is it alright if we meet up later? After school, if you've got time?" I looked at the wooden table where Sasha, Connie, Bert and Reiner sat.

He sighed in annoyance. "The things you make me do for you, Jean."

Our table looked like a poker table; crowded with shifty glances and contempt. Most of it was directed at Marco. Reiner clasped his hands together, leaning forward on the table, acting as though he hadn't just clapped loud enough for it sound like thunder. His frown-that was just his face-but it was in an even deeper frown today and he looked a bit like a pug.

A burly, blonde pug.

Now that's not something you see every day.  
"Listen," he growled at the fake Marco polo. "I know fine well that anybody can say sorry, but it doesn't mean anything. I just want you to tell me why you felt the sudden urge to call me out in front of everyone, and for to tell me exactly what it is that you hate so much about the fact I'm gay-that me and Bertholdt are going out-tell me why you hate that." He paused, keeping his blue glare on Marco's calm, brown orbs.

"If you're honest, I'll consider letting Jean near you two times a day; and that's if you're lucky."

Marco rolled his eyes. "I'd be lucky if you kept him away from me, but okay, whatever."

He squirmed at his place on the bench, sighing loudly, folding his arms as he pulled a face. Maybe this was why he had been so nice; because he hated saying sorry so much that he just didn't do anything to annoy people. I never could have lived by a rule like that. My apology would've just ended in an argument anyway.

"See, the thing is, is that although I'm what you call a "homophobe", it's not in the way you think." His shoulders slumped and he lifted a hand to speak into it. "Homophobes are just seen as people who hate gay people, but me, I'm… I'm just scared, I guess." He scoffed at himself. "A guy afraid of other guys liking guys. What the hell, right? But you could say that about any fear, like… I don't know.

Some people are afraid of bees, some more than others, and the ones who are completely terrified are a bit hard to understand… Since most others don't see bees as being that scary… And that's what it's like for me about gay guys… Or girls… I'm totally not making any sense, am I? I just, I got scared, like, actually scared in the middle of class so I whined about it. That's it. That's why I was a dick."


	14. Chapter 14

One thing out of many others that was good about when I had Marco as a best friend, back then; is that he taught me something. Actually, he taught me quite a few things, mentally, socially and skill-wise.

I was reminded of one of those lessons, as I sat at that table. It was the time when Marco and I were sitting at the wooden table in the barracks, while the others were getting their shoes off, climbing into the bunk beds and I edged to the end of the bench to get closer to the furnace, feeling a slight warm breeze on my clothed shoulder and side. I would've preferred more heat than what I was getting, considering the temperature was slowly dropping, inside the barracks and outside in the cruel, cold world. But yeah, I could deal.

I was a man, my fourteen year old self told me. So take it like a man, Kirstein.

Marco was talking in a low voice about someone he'd helped that day, someone who self-harmed, apparently. When I saw the vaguely panicked but mostly calm look on his face, I found myself wondering… Just how did he go about helping people all the time?

"Marco," I interrupted him mid-sentence.

"How do you react when people tell you things? I mean, it must be pretty scary for you to have to listen to that, right? And most of the people that talk to you are off their rockers, right?" I squeaked.

Yeah, my voice still hadn't broken at that age. Those were dark, dark times.

He looked at me steadily, then smiled sweetly and told me

"Jean, one thing you've got to learn to do when people talk to you, especially when it's about something important, is to accept what they're telling you. As in, don't go about thinking that they're crazy, straight off the bat. They don't go to me for help to be penalized, you know. They want me to understand, and I do, thankfully. So no, it's not too scary."

He scratched a ragged pattern into the table with his neat fingernail as he spoke, looking at down at the wood. His were uncommonly long, considering the rest of us gnawed our nails down. A lot like a girl's, actually. Maybe they gave him manicures…

"I asked one of them once why they wanted me to help them, and they said it was because I looked like someone they could talk to. Do I look like that to you?" he glanced up at me through a fan of soot black lashes.

I took him in; his composed, freckled face and his broad hand that was supporting his jaw as he looked back at me, unwaveringly, as though he was patiently waiting for me to speak.

"Yeah... Yeah, you really do. You've got that kind of "I'll listen, so throw your worst at me" feel about you."

He grinned at me with a show of teeth, his cheeks turning a shade of red that lit up his freckles and his eyes.

"Well, there you go, then. If you look approachable and accepting, you'll be able to help them a lot more easily, since they'll open up to you more."

The first time I used this info was when Reiner came out to me, surprisingly enough. I had been scoffing about how close Armin and Eren were, during practice in the field with Reiner.

"Those guys are so gay for each other." I rolled my eyes, not bothering to hide the fact that we weren't actually sparring like we should've been.

He hummed. "I quite like gays."

He gave me a meaningful look and quirked his eyebrow as he smirked. To be honest, I wasn't really sure how to react to that. Like, that was all fine and dandy, but uh, yeah, not exactly what I'd been getting at.

"Uh, okay."

His smirk dropped in favor of a dumbfounded expression. He raised his eyebrows for a second, his eyes widening in disbelief, before giving me a pleased grin and a playful shove on the shoulder.

I was actually a little heartbroken at how surprised he'd looked just then. I'd just said okay, accepting him without a second thought, though it took me a little while to figure out that that was why he'd looked at me in that way. Even back then, homosexuality was pretty much taboo. Although I knew, especially from the creaking beds in the boys' barracks at night, that a lot of people were gay.

Things never change, huh?

Not many people would've had the same reaction nowadays as I did back then.

I used Marco's advice again, this time for his sake.

I made quick eye contact with Reiner at the bench; he was already looking at me in confusion with that furrowed brow of his. Then I turned to Marco, who was stiff in his seat after his inspiring speech about comparing homophobia to bee-phobia (apiphobia), probably terrified that we'd tear him limb from limb, like the "big bad gays" we were. Well. Not bad. We were just scary, apparently. Though Marco probably didn't know I was also… (Oops.)

I said. "Alright."

Fear wasn't chosen, in the exact same way that your orientation wasn't. Like, I knew that I didn't exactly intend to be slightly anxious around dogs. I mean, I put up with them, but Marco was implying that with gay people, he just…couldn't deal with it at all.

His expression mirrored Reiner's from that time, which didn't seem too long ago, but who the hell knew how long ago it actually had been? We all must've been in limbo for a while. (OOH. Or maybe we had different lives before this one?!)

He gave a shaky, relieved sigh, nodding at me, before looking at Reiner fearfully. Imagine someone being afraid of a pug, ha. I would be too, I suppose, if said pug was a metric ton of scary ass muscle. And I found Reiner was only scary because he was strong, not because he looked like a dog. Would I have been scared if he actually was one? I don't know.

Reiner grimaced and looked troubled, having still not said anything, as well as everyone else at the silent table who of which I didn't want to look at, for fear of being stared down and mentally sabotaged for answers as to why I'd said Such a Thing in favor the Bodt boy. (I think I found another nickname for him.)

Then the pug man nodded slowly, and Bertholdt, that great sweaty giant, caressed his arm worriedly, as he stared down at the table with a solemn expression. Or maybe it was anger. He's quite a hard person to read, that Bert.

"You're allowed to see Jean once a day." Reiner said quietly, taking a glimpse of Marco's slightly disturbed face.

I frowned at Marco as though to say "Dude, what now?" while trying to figure out why he was-

He caught my eye, his brown orbs flickering from me in worry to the couple who were sitting closer together, talking to each other in hushed voices, touching the other's arm in an affectionate gesture-

Ah. That was the, uh signal… I see…

We-I?-had to take into account that Marco was afraid, as could be seen from the way he still hadn't loosened his posture and wore a constipated expression, it probably meant that any sickly sweet, physical contact was out of the question for him.

I nodded quickly at Reiner. "Thanks for having the heart to forgive him, man, it's good of you to do that."

Then I dragged Marco by his freckled arm so we could get the hell out of there, ignoring Connie and Sasha's half hearted protests of "Get back here! We weren't finished speaking!) Like, geez, guys, don't even try to hide the fact you don't like my little Mar-Mar, eh?

I brought him back to the corner, the one that we'd fought at not even a day ago, and I felt him trembling under my fingers.

"Hey, hey, are you okay?" I asked gently, letting go of him, and glanced around the corner of the concrete wall to make sure no-one had followed, and then back at him.

His face was drained of color; the entirety of his blood seemed to have collected in his nose, making him look exactly like Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer. I winced internally as his eyebrows twitched and his lip quivered. His eyes began to water, and I pulled him by his batman t-shirted shoulder, straight into my chest, despite him being half a head taller than me. The position wasn't comfortable, I'll tell you that.

I shall reach your height, one day, Mr Bodt. Just give me a few (hundred) years.

Marco freezing up in my arms reminded me of something that might have been pretty important to not forget.

"Ah shit," I let go of him. "Sorry, I kinda panicked, I didn't really know if-"

"Jean."

"You know, because you said you get scared, and I thought, maybe-"

"Jean." He squeezed my shoulders, shaking me slightly so I would look at him properly. I did and I ended up grimacing at my own helplessness as I saw his miserable expression twist into a fake smile as he calmed me down.

"It's okay. It… It's really okay…"

At that point, I wasn't really sure if he was saying that to me, or himself.

(That was a psychology lesson I learned from reading Claudia's graphic novel version of Happy Feet. You know, the bit when the penguin dad tells the broken egg that everything would be fine, after he's dropped the little shit. Way to go, Disney. Teaching kids like me some super deep shit.)

I'd been preparing for Marco to cry and maybe collapse into my arms in a fit of tears, but he never did. Crying wasn't manly, and he seemed to know that as well as I did. We sat down and stayed at the corner for the rest of lunch break, being silently awkward like hell, because I had no idea what the hell to do, even though I really didn't like that Marco had to hold himself together.

It wasn't long before the bell rang for class, and he gave me a pat on the back as he stood up, telling me he'd still meet me after school if I wanted to. I told him I did. Because I thought hey, maybe if I told him something morbid at the end of the day, maybe it'd cheer him up, or at least keep his mind off of the gays.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: my fucked up idea of logical explanations.

Everyone loves me for it. I just know it.

Since I had no idea what Marco's timetable was-yes, even after a week of having found him, I still did not know his wretched timetable-I somehow found him outside the school gate behind the P.E department. He's sensible, I'll give him that. He leant his back against the rusty metal, tapping at his phone as he hunched over it with a frustrated frown, then heard my footsteps and gave me a dorky little wave, shoving his phone away with his other hand. Heh. Cute. That little nerd. Wish he was my nerd.

"So I thought I'd tell you more about our past life." I said and we began walking together.

He rolled his eyes at me and sighed in irritation. "Awesome."

"But first," I took my phone out my pocket, then dived for his bag, making him yelp as the weight of the bag pulled him backwards.

"What are-!"

"Retrieving your timetable, where is it?"

"Uh, front p-pocket."

I zipped it open, finding a very well kept, white piece of paper that was Marco's sacred timetable.

"Beautiful. I'm genuinely surprised it's not destroyed yet. My one didn't make it past three days."

"It's not that neat…"

I pulled out my own tattered timetable from my back pocket, and it was literally hanging together by a shred of paper and grey.

"I see…" He said when he saw its state and I chuckled, looking down at his paper that I unfolded.

My eyebrows shot up as we walked home. "You take drama? On top of taking two sciences? That's insane."

"I just took it as a filler subject." He laughed darkly, lowering his eyelids. "I was very, very ill-advised about that choice by the school counselor."

"Hmm. I know the feeling. I took art, but at least I enjoy it."

"Oh, no, I don't mind drama, there's just more work than I expected."

I raised an eyebrow at him, giving him back the paper that he slipped back into his bag while looking at me. "You got any theatrical talents?"

"…I can do voices, but I'm-."

"Show me-!"

"No! I knew you'd ask me to! No way! Anyway, didn't you say you were going to tell me something completely non-fictional?"

"Non-fictional." I scoffed at him. "Our past lives are nothing but a fairy-tail. Right… then I guess it's not true at all that you died young, and that we all had to keep going without any time to stop and mourn properly for a whole day and night before the cremation." Trust me to turn a subject dark, huh…

Marco frowned in concern. "Oh..? That doesn't sound like fun."

"No! Of course it wasn't fun!" I was almost shouting at him. "You were my best friend and I fucking saw you very much un-alive! Not exactly the most fun thing to see, you know."

He didn't say anything, even though I was getting angry at him, and he used to scold me for getting too worked up. Since he didn't, I continued.

"I don't even know what happened. By the look of it, you got a huge chunk bitten out of you, by a titan, the man eating monster thing. I just got reminded of it today when you said you didn't want to be eaten." My voice cracked.

I sighed, taking a deep breath, wondering how I was able to talk about this without tearing up at all. I must've become numb to it, in the end.

"I got really pissed off that I had to keep going, we had to keep on fighting even though you were laying there-"

I clenched my jaw, trying to wear away the lump throttling me from within my throat. I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked to see Marco with his eyebrows creased sympathetically, both of us in the middle of the sidewalk with cars flying beside us on the road.

His face softened more when he saw my expression. I must've looked like absolute hell if he wanted to comfort me when he'd been feeling like shit earlier.

"Sorry, didn't mean to dump all of this on you when you-"

"I believe you, you know."

My heart swelled in my stomach, filling the entirety of my body, making me feel like I'd go up like a balloon.

"What?"

He nodded, smiling sadly. "Yeah, I just, I believe you, so don't worry about it. You can tell me when you're ready, if you want."

So… either he was telling me this to try and get me to shut the fuck up or… he felt bad for me having to go through it again in my mind, which I had been, and the flashes of memories were still popping up behind my eyelids. I decided the latter, I thought maybe he did feel bad for me, considering he was smiling a bit.

I put an arm around his shoulder so I could hold him without it seeming like a hug, walking so that we both moved forward. Ah, he smelled like lavender. Lovely. Calming. Very Bodt-like. Wrap me up in a blanket of him any day.

"Thanks for finally believing me, Mr. "He's completely full of non-fiction, that dashing Kirstein man, and I dislike him very much" Bodt." I grinned at him, taking my arm back and putting by my side. The extended "touching period between friends" was over, sadly.

He slid his hands in his pocket. "You're welcome. It's my present for you on our one week anniversary."

Oh my god-I had to hide my face in my hands as I laughed, turning red. I was still covering my mouth when I said:

"It feels like a lot longer than that. Well, then again I was the one that met you ages ago. Say," we stood at the stop-lights, waiting for the green signal to light up.

"Now that you believe me about our past lives, I don't suppose you'd fancy attempting trying to remember your P.E class, eh?"

He looked dazedly at the sky as we walked across the road, my ears filled with the sound of the motors buzzing and thrumming around us, attempting to run us over as the light overhead turned orange.

"Our entire P.E class was in the past life too?"

"Yup," I popped the "p". "And many, many more."

"Right, okay then. Can't hurt to try, I guess. I did make it through that thing last night, by some miracle. Why don't we make a bet? If I remember, I have to owe you a big favor. If I don't, you're my personal slave until the end of senior year."

He gave me a smile, a big, toothy smile that made his eyes crinkle and his freckled cheeks swell, as he went down his street, still talking to me loudly so that the whole street knew about our deal.

"What?! That's hardly fair!"

He waved at me before turning back to walk home, and I waved back, standing at that street corner. Not watching him go to his house or anything, that'd be creepy. But he did happen to go into number five…

I couldn't help but remember how grumpy he'd been when we first met, and now look at us: making deals about something he'd once called bullshit on, to the point of passing Jaeger in levels of stubbornness.

Also, I couldn't help but wonder…

Which would be more selfish?

Keeping my feelings for him a secret?

Or telling him I liked him?


	15. Chapter 15

I didn't really know how or why, but the next day, Marco came and sat at our lunch table. Like, he just walked up, nodded at us, then sat next to me. I hadn't invited him, so this was his own doing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really liked the privilege of sitting next to the sacred Mar-Mar and his wholesomeness, but… You know. The homophobia thing? Yeah, apparently that was completely forgotten. Luckily for him, Bert and Reiner were nice enough to not do their PDA stuff at the table when he showed up.

Of course, according to the grapevine; Marco was a new member to our Lunch Time Crew table, our members including only Connie, Sasha, Reiner, Bert and me today, and he didn't know how things worked around these parts.

His face was seriously priceless when the Ritual started.

See, the thing is, is that Bertholdt and Reiner weren't always good guys. Yes, we were all friends before, once upon a time. Then they betrayed us. But nowadays, they weren't big scary monsters anymore. No-one was. Although, I can't really say that much for Jaeger and his attitude. But hey. I'll take what I can get.

So we did this "cleansing ritual" which is basically an unspoken agreement that everyone who went to the table followed and we silently agreed to not hold Bert and Reiner against what they did in our past life, and we could all be friends.

First up, everyone took a turn to cup Reiner's man boobs. Yes. You heard me right. Although, the guys were normally allowed to not do this, because you know, it's pretty fucking weird.

Reiner's pecks seem to mean a lot to him (I knew they meant a lot to Bert, but that's in a completely different way) so in touching them, we apparently a) humiliate him and b) break down barriers and create a wall of trust. I liked the concept; I just wished it didn't include weird fondling. I tasted vomit in my mouth just thinking about it.

I was sitting opposite Reiner while this was taking place, Connie and Sasha both in line to get their turn and groping him from behind one at a time, and I turned around to look at Marco and my shoulders were already vibrating with quiet laughter. His... fucking face, man. His eyes bulged as he watched them and he actually grimaced like they do in cartoons. Then he started gaping like a goldfish, obviously unable to even say anything. Comical.

Oh, but it wasn't over yet.

Everyone knew that Bert sweated a lot when he was nervous, so we all marked a cross on his forehead like we were dousing him in holy water.

I'm not religious. No-one at that table was. I wasn't actually sure whether Marco was or not, but he hadn't mentioned god as of yet, so we'd see.

We did that for the same reasons as before, although I'm pretty sure that Bert didn't value his salty excess liquids as much as Reiner liked his boobs. Still, they were a part of his character in the same way that Sasha was potato girl and Connie was the short, bald dude that hung out with her all the time.

Beside me, Marco put his face in his hands, and I think I might have heard him scolding himself, something along the lines of "I can't bloody believe I was actually scared of these absolute idiots".

"Hey, Marco." I brought him out of his inner monologue as I spoke then nudged his leg with my foot underneath the table. "It's your turn."

It's fucking awesome to mess with people when they don't know what they're doing. But hey, I'm not an asshole. I mean, I'm rude to people I don't know, I cut in line and refuse to get people things when they're like "hey, could you grab something for me while you're at the shop?"

Okay. So maybe I'm a little bit mean. Just a tad. At least I'm not rude to waiters (depending on my mood, and also, Marco counts as one and I only tease him, rather than being mean) and even though I freak out when I see them; I always help spiders get out the window. But not flies. Those bitches can go rot in hell. Same for moths and daddy-long-legs. Fucking freaks of nature the lot of them. I'm still not an asshole.

Marco took part of the ritual. He did. He went behind Reiner and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud when he gave his tits a quick pat (who the hell even invented this ritual? Probably Connie, before I started hanging out with them. My reaction had been similar to Marco's on my first time, but he doesn't need to know that) and moved on. He was seemingly more comfortable marking a cross on Bert's forehead until he spoke up.

Berthold widened his brown eyes as Marco held a finger against his tanned skin. "You're not allowed to leave us now. You're joined to our group." Then he whispered "Forever."

Marco frowned at him, nodding slowly. "Right…" He said, dragging out the "i" then went to sit back down again while Sasha and Connie giggled at him, making him turn red.

Even after that, our table was still as strange as can be, because Reiner always started talking about the crazy people he met at the nightclub where he worked and Sasha and Connie usually danced to Sasha's phone's music (thankfully, her taste didn't include One Direction).

When they started grinding each other in the campest way I never even knew was possible, I was glad that I was probably never going to see them at a nightclub. There was no way in hell I was ever going to a prom if I was going to have to put up with these morons.

Fortunately, the duo didn't start dancing, and that might be due to the fact that Sasha was still eating chicken wraps and she always had this thing where she was shy in front of strangers, and I guess Marco's a bit of a stranger.

Everyone was mostly in their own conversations, and I, for some reason, was pretty quiet that lunchtime. I turned to Marco, only to find him already looking my way as though he'd given up on us, with one hand massaging his freckled temple.

As I tried not to turn purple at his intense stare, he chuckled and told me "You really do make some… interesting friends in your spare time…"

Saturday's training went by okay, Marco still couldn't aim the basketball correctly to save his life and we figured out that we really needed to work on his cardio, because he was an idiot and only ever worked on his abs. I didn't mind this fact, not in the least, but you know. I was still Mr. "Star Player in Middle School and now a Freshman Captain in High-school" and I had promised to fix him up. Plus, we had an away game only two weeks away.

Why did I have to be told that by Connie? Well as it turns out, he's a little shit and over heard Erwin talking in the P.E mini staffroom before the news was passed onto me, not a day later by Captain America himself… I also learned that Levi had been a substitute teacher the other week for us because apparently Erwin had had to go and see his mother, and was going to do so again after the game.

And did you know?

Our away game was going to involve staying in Rose.

Over night.

In a freaking three star hotel, which contrary to common belief, isn't all that bad.

I was still trying to get used to being a captain, and ordering seniors around was weird enough as it was, without having the pressure of "FUCK YES I GET SHARE A ROOM WITH THE BODT BOY" pushing down on me (Captains get to choose their rooms, I really, really love that privilege). And as a fairly normal teenage boy, that is genuinely quite hard to do. Especially with the thought of him giving me bedroom eyes and seeing his bed head once again when we woke up after a long, laborious day and night…of basketball and me.

I was going to keep him all night at the hotel; and that was a promise I made to myself, because if he was up all night, that meant we'd have enough time to "talk". I didn't even care if I liked him or not and vice versa, screw my unrequited feelings; I was going to befriend him again.

Okay, so my optimism did have a source; I had watched the "straight boy gone gay" porn videos. It, as in me and the Bodt boy, together, could happen. I had my misguided hopes that I would attempt to see through. Fears are meant to be overcome, after all…

I kind of regretted going to the diner on the Sunday when Marco had a five hour long shift. Not only was I bored and just sitting my loser butt down at the bar while he worked his cute little ass off, but I may have ended up in a fight. With the manager.

"Excuse me, young man, but we'd like for you to leave, please. This is a family restaurant and we can't have teenagers loitering around and scaring the children." A snooty voice chastened me, while kids shrieking in laughter and happiness drowned out her voice.

I'm sorry, what? Scaring the children? Me? I had a five year old sister at home, and I knew for a fact that I didn't wear thug clothes or anything remotely scary, like I don't know, spikes and dark make-up. I looked up at her and all her full make-up glory (downfall, more like).

The manager had white blonde hair like Rico, her piercing blue eyes were wide open, freakishly so, since they didn't go at all with her fake tan. She was wearing an ironed white shirt and a black skirt as though she was some kind of old fashioned teacher. Y'ouch. Take some of your own advice, lady.

I raised my palms and shrugged, gesturing that I didn't know what she meant and shook my head defensively.

"I'm not even doing anything! I'm just waiting until my friend finishes his shift!"

Behind the bar counter, Marco looked at me guiltily with one corner of his mouth down turned, even though he hadn't called the manager out on me. No-one had, I think. Not even Armin. Marco leaned down from where he was standing, and folded his arms on the counter. That was such a nice position…

"Why are you even waiting for me to finish? All we do is walk home together afterwards, and I'm not much for conversation."

That was completely correct; I also knew he wasn't a talker because for some reason, he just loved being all guarded and didn't bring up any topic to talk about whatsoever. I try, guys, I really try. He used to be a talker, though. I told him that after our practice on Saturday, but he didn't really say anything. Proved me right, I guess. And to think he'd spoken to me fine on Thursday morning!

"Do you ever think that maybe while I'm rambling, you could pitch in a few words here and there? I give you plenty of opportunities, man. Besides, we're friends and I got bored of being in my room all day. Wikihow says that you should spend time with a friend in order to avoid boredom. I don't make the rules."

Lay on the friend word. Uh huh. Dig it down deep; let him know that I wasn't leaving because even if he was stubborn, so was I. And that was why we somehow still got along. Slightly. And I didn't hang out with him because I was bored. Well, not entirely, at least.

Neither of us mentioned that I had my whole Lunch Time Crew that I could go and annoy, and that fact kind of led me to believe he didn't mind being around me after all. Maybe we'd somehow bonded over my time at being at the diner. Yeah, we'd had a good few memories at the diner already, even though I'd only met the guy again a week and a half ago. I'd only been round to his work four times, so why tell me to leave now?

I still got kicked out, despite my valid arguments. I ended up having to walk home in the rain and everything, like it was my own pathetic fallacy. I hadn't brought an umbrella. Umbrellas are for wussies. I had to make do with my hood, and as I was trudging along, I heard my phone ring, telling me I had a new text.

From: The Fake Marco Polo

We don't have to hangout at m work you kno

I raised an eyebrow, waiting to see if he'd send another message. It sounded like an invitation. A very promising one at that. After two minutes, I decided he wasn't going to send another text and typed out a reply, trying to wipe the raindrops from the screen as I did so. Walking and texting while in the rain is torture.

From: Me

How bout my hous thn?

From: The Fake Marco Polo

Eh not tonight. Grandparents r comn ovr

Wow. I loved our similar texting styles. And he didn't call me out on bad grammar or spelling. What a bonus. Well, not that he could, since his was just as bad as mine. I just like saving my credit, I didn't know what his excuse was. Laziness, probably.

From: Me

Im free on tues, aftr bsketbllclub. U?

From: The Fake Marco Polo

K then. Breaks ovr, c u at school.

From: Me

I love that plan xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From: The Fake Marco Polo

Ew don't do tht, go kiss baldy nstead

Yes, the proposal of hanging out with Marco was definitely something worth correct spelling. And lots of kisses. Because I knew just how much he liked them. I already knew exactly what I was going to do with him on Tuesday.


	16. Chapter 16

"Okay, but basketball, why basketball?"

"Well there's a story for that, if I remember correctly. Let's see, uh…"

I dribbled the basketball down my garage path, trying to aim at the hoop above the garage door while simultaneously thinking of the story. Nope. Couldn't do it. I bounced the ball over to Marco and sat down on the concrete with a nostalgic sigh.

"I got my memories triggered in middle school, but I liked basketball even before then. Maybe running around the court and slam dunking balls into hoops was like uh, I don't know. There was a website that said people's likes and dislikes are affected by their past lives, like when people get scared of going over bridges and stuff because they got drowned before?

Yeah, so basketball was like the good version of that for me, and then after my memories came back, I stayed on with it, because I didn't want to mix with people I knew from before, and they were in the other teams at my school.

It was pretty good for me, too. I suddenly became really quiet and a little more clingy, so being around people made me feel better, and I had all the adrenaline I had before from when I was in the army. It turns out that a lot of old habits die hard. Getting rid of my frustration through sport was one of them."

Being around you, Marco, was another.

Except… I hadn't let him go the moment he tried to push me away. And somehow, because of that, I felt that much closer to him.

"And therefore: basketball. And because I pushed myself more than the other guys, I ended up as the beautiful basketball star of my school, currently the Team Captain you see today."

I cheesed him a big, dopey smile then lay down, while he ran off to get the ball he'd thrown into the hoop. I folded my arms beneath my head and the concrete scraped the back of my hands.

It was almost like High School Musical, wasn't it? With my singing and my awesome basketball skills and all that jazz. I was Troy. Motherfucking male drama queen of the century. I was team Wildcats. Hell yeah.

But then again… Marco and I hadn't met at a new year's party. He was nothing like Gabrielle, either. I doubted anyone was my Sharpay. (Connie might volunteer for the part, maybe as a comedy thing)

Maybe I was Corbin Bleu's character. Afro dude, as I called him. According to Sasha, there was a lot of fan fiction about Afro dude and Ryan-the rich, snobby kid. That could work pretty well, in terms of how well if fit with my situation. Minus the whole reincarnation thing.

Shit.

I found my calling.

I was destined to become Afro dude. The Alternate Universe Version of Afro dude, where he was the Captain instead of Troy, but still had the gay thing going on with Rich Kid, i.e. Marco. His dad was a doctor. Marco was Rich Kid.

Yup, found my calling.

"Hey, Jean?" An unattractively red faced Bodt huffed above me, clutching the ball to his side and looking around. "Can we go inside now? It's starting to rain, and I'm tired."

Poor baby. He's tired.

"But if we go inside, my mom will ask me 'Hey Jean, have you done your homework?' And I'll be like 'But I don't want to, I don't like essays'."

He shrugged, tossing the ball onto my stomach, winding me. That fucking HURT. Asshole.

"I don't think she'll let you neglect me for homework."

Somehow, even when he was unattractive with his sweat and tired eyes, his personality made up for it.

"No, no, she'll just entertain you herself, and trust me; you don't wanna be around her for too long. She'll destroy your faith in humanity."

My plan. My pretty plan. Wait, scratch that last one, I was just looking for alliteration.

Okay; according to my notebook, (that definitely wasn't a diary) in bringing Marco around to my house this Tuesday afternoon, many a good thing could come from it:

1. Lots of alone time with him

2. I learn his music taste when he comments on the music playing through my computer speakers when we got to my room

3. The possible chance of a heart to heart, explaining our back stories to one another

I'd started it off already, with my basketball story. Surely he'd be tempted to tell me about himself too? I'd known the guy what, almost three weeks now? I still knew nothing about him. You know. Aside from his biggest fear and his middle name, etc.

Okay, so perhaps I did know a fair amount already, but not a lot about what had happened to him in this life.

4. I could introduce him to Glee.

Glee was my soul. No, but seriously; there had never been another show that made me laugh or cry as much as Glee had, and the TV show and I had singing in common. I may have began the series later than when it had started, but I was very much in love with Glee. Wedding was in December.

Sorry Marco, but you were not my first love. He was extremely close, coming in at First and Half. Mikasa didn't count. That had been a very, very long phase. I didn't like to think about it too much. Made me go all morose and stuff.

Part one of the plan was going well. Mom went out with Claudia soon after me and Mar-mar came inside and good old Dad was still at work. All alone with the Bodt. Fuck, that sounded like either a sitcom, or a psychological thriller with a bit of horror thrown in.

We sat in the living room, which was just as sophisticatedly furbished as the rest of the house (at least I actually liked my mom's taste. Otherwise, I'd have something to say about her decorating my room). The walls and carpet were white, with the ground being littered in Claudia's toys. The coffee table, the TV cabinet, the flat screen TV on the wall and the leather sofa stuffed into the corner of the room were black.

Sophisticated? I think you mean boring.

The shelves were black too, with black photo frames perched on them ("Oh my god, is that… Horses? You have horses?!" "… I always knew you stalked me… But even when I lived in France? Now I'm scared."), as well as Mom's "empty perfume bottle" collection (that shelf falling down had been the cause of all the redecorating in the first place, so I had no idea why she even put them all back onto another shelf, in the exact same place on the wall, the plaster obviously didn't support them).

I turned on the TV using the remote, bringing the room to life with the TV's high quality color and cheerful noises of Nicktoons, since that had been the programme it'd been on before the TV got turned off. I watched a lot of Nicktoons these days. Thanks, Claudia.

Marco flopped onto the sofa, though he was careful not to put his feet on the leather (what manners). My eyes may have lingered on him as he cracked the joints in his back with little pops, revealing his neck until his rubbed at it with a sweaty palm. He really needed to improve his stamina, jeez, he was practically dripping his sweat onto the sofa.

Less than Bertholdt would, I guess. Then again, Bert had never been round to my house, or sweated on my sofa, so I wouldn't know.

"Do you want a towel?"

He jumped at my voice, coming out of a daydream, eyes wide as he turned to face me with an innocently shocked expression. "Huh?"

I snorted at him. "You're sweating like a fucking pig, we might need to get a bucket under your ass to catch all the droplets."

He rubbed his damp forehead, glaring at me. If he hadn't been so red already, he probably would've blushed. With my legs folded beneath me, I grabbed a white cushion from behind and cuddled it into my chest, snatching up the remote from the armrest with my free hand to change the channel.

"What's your opinion on comedy/drama musicals?" I asked him, biting my lip to hold back a giddy smile.

"Um…" Marco looked at the screen as though it was going to bite him. "You don't know what you'll like, unless you try it? That's what my mom said about vegetables. I felt very betrayed afterwards."

"How old were you?"

"Six." I laughed at him while he rolled his eyes at me in annoyance, slouching into the sofa like the moody teenager he was.

So I got him to watch a pre-recorded episode of Glee with me. Whether he was paying attention or not, I'm not really sure, because he didn't ask questions about any of the characters, but he could've been trying to figure it out for himself. He was pretty good at figuring people out, so I didn't see how or why he couldn't figure out a TV show.

Although, I'd started the episode from halfway through, having watched only some it on Monday night before Claudia decided she needed to watch Dora the Explorer, so there was a chance he might not have bothered. But hey, there he was, sitting his ass down on my sofa, watching a show with me, and I couldn't be happier.

Well, I could be, if he wasn't so sweaty. Think of the sofa!

In the episode, Kurt was crying to the Warblers that the little bird had died and he was singing his own version of Blackbird, The Beatles' song, and I fucking swooned in my fan boy heart when I realized the camera was concentrating on Mr Blaine for a reason. That was totally what eye-fucking looked like. Blaine totally liked Kurt back! FINALLY.

Come to think of it, did I look like that when I looked at Marco?

If so, then I looked pretty damn hot.

Wait. Did thinking Blaine was hot when he went all gooey eyed at Kurt mean that I wasn't just gay for Marco, I was actually, properly gay?

I hadn't looked at another girl for quite a while now.

It could've been Marco's fault. My crush on him kinda filled my headspace too much for there to be anyone else in there, let alone some girl that happened to be hot.

But… The Blaine thing as well….

Gay: 2 Straight: 0

Speaking of which, the stuff on the TV was getting, um, pretty damn homo.

As in, Blaine was leaning over the table, holding Kurt's hands in his while confessing, and well; it kind of looked like they were going to kiss. Since they were American, they couldn't exactly call it "European stuff" either. Because being French myself, I knew fine well that it was only old ladies and best buddies that kissed each other at all, and even then it was only on the cheeks. (Damn you, stereotypes.)

I scrambled for the remote, almost dropping it in my hurry and managed to pause it before any gay guys kissed each other on the screen. I snapped my head to look over at Marco.

He was leaning forward, eyes glued shut with his head in his shaking hands.

Well, shit.

How long had he been like that for?

I watched him as he controlled his breathing, forcing it to slow down. Time passed, but it might as well have been just as frozen as the screen, because neither or us moved a muscle. How much time passed? An awkward amount of time, filled with silence. A really painfully awkward, and just plain painful, amount of time in silence passed.

There was just… no way that this guy was faking any of it.

When he opened his eyes to stare down blankly at the floor, I dared to say, "I'm really sorry Marco, I didn't know they'd do that. I just… I really like the show, and I wanted to show you… A-are you ok?"

He wouldn't look at me. His breathing became quicker, almost like hiccups, until he sucked in a massive amount of air and slowly blew it out, like a long whistle without any noise.

"It's fine." His voice was gruff and he didn't say that he was fine.

"…You sure?" He just shrugged.

I… had no idea what the fuck to do, to put it simply. Or what I should say. Should I have asked him if he wanted to leave? Change the topic? Turn off the TV and tell him, alright Marco; lets go for a walk and talk about it?

I did that, I turned off the TV and faced him again, he was still staring down at the floor.

"Marco, I'm really, really sorry. Um… Do you want me to…?"

He shook his head, ducking his head down so that his hands cradled his face again, hiding himself from my view. I swallowed, loud enough for even him to hear it from where he sat a few centimetres away from me on the sofa.

He didn't want to talk about it. At all. By the looks of it, he was just as stuck as me, not knowing what to do or how to excuse himself so he could get the fuck out my house, like I'm sure he wanted to do right then.

And it scared me, because fuck me if this wasn't that much more worse than the first time we met, when he pushed me against a wall, because at the this point in time, I was supposed to be his friend and I couldn't even do that for him. And he couldn't, he couldn't even bring himself to shout at me, like he should have done, like I would have done in his position.

"Is it related to trauma? The homophobia thing?" I asked quietly, my voice cracked. He looked at me then, with wide eyes and his eyebrows burrowed in confusion.

"It's… it's not. At least, I don't think so. Prolly wouldn't remember it, if it was." he mumbled.

"O-oh." I stared at him, and for once, it wasn't so that I could ogle at him.

Marco leaned back onto the sofa, folding his arms with a stretched out sigh. "Yeah, I'm just some asshole that doesn't like it when two guys kiss." I noticed he avoided looking at the TV screen, even though it was pitch black.

"Mhm, plenty of people like you around the world." I winced internally. Whether from that fact or my idiotic way of dealing with this, I couldn't quite tell.

"I don't even want to be scared!" He blurted, bringing me out of my inner turmoil. He glanced over at me uncertainly with big brown eyes, and I leaned back into the sofa facing him, nodding so that he would keep talking. I liked where this was going. But he still looked so unsure and hesitant that it hurt.

"Explain." I prompted, giving him a small smile that was reserved only for him, even if he didn't know that.

"Your friends seem like good people, y'know? And… it actually kinda helps that they're these big, lovable idiots and they're funny," he grimaced, almost affectionately. "In their own way, of course. And I just," he threw his hands up in frustration, shifting his position on the sofa, making it squeak under him.

"I can tell that being g-gay isn't bad, but I can't help but feel like I wanna run away when they do anything and I know that they're annoyed at me and they have every right to be, I know fine well they do, hell, I'm fucking annoyed at me too, fucking hate that I can't just accept things and can't grow the fuck up-" he stopped suddenly, snapping his mouth shut and grinding his teeth together as though to lock his voice inside his mouth.

Wow. Heavy. Heavy stuff was going through the mind of Marco.

How did he process it all?

He didn't. Or, well, he couldn't. Not nowadays.

I sucked air through my teeth, trying to figure it out. "How about… fake it 'til you make it?" I cringed at my own advice. "Fuck no, that sounds stupid-"

"You think I can tough it out if I just pretend I'm fine?" he chewed his lip, and I knew I'd said the wrong thing.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-"

"That might work actually, I mean, it sort of did before, right? I sat at the table with you all and that's something, I think?"

I nodded eagerly, glad that he had been asking for my opinion, rather than a rhetorical question.

Could he be with the guys at the table if he just pretended he was fine? My head began to ache with all the stress of over thinking.

"Try it," I said finally. "Keep trying, I mean. I think it's good that you want to try."

He gave me a small smile with his eyes red from almost crying. "Really? But I'm still horrible-"

"You apologised-"

"Since when did apologies ever sort anything out?" He whined. "Happens all the time at work, kids pull at each others hair and they are so damn smug when all they have to say is they're sorry, and they don't mean it at all-"

"But you did." I reminded him. "You meant it when you said sorry, didn't you?"

He tightened his lips, frowning at the question. "Not as much as I should've done. Jesus, I can't even be sorry for them without making it all about myself!"

"…Yeah, that last bit is true," his shoulders drooped. "But that means you'll just have to say sorry again, and mean it this time."

We wouldn't have had to go through this again if he'd meant it the first time… Not to mention Reiner would know that he hadn't really meant it the first time…

Fuck drama. Fuck feelings. Fuck life.

"Really, Marco, just try it." I was emotionally exhausted by this point, to the point where I could feel myself being drained of all my energy.

He nodded at me, his eyelashes fluttered as he looked down at the sofa. "I will."

-Two weeks later-

Lo and behold! Marco kept his promise! Rejoice!

At least, that was what it looked like, since I saw Reiner picking up Marco into a bear hug and spinning him around before they got onto the minivan. Wow. Much progress, such improvement, wow, wow. When he caught a glance of my glare through the window, he chuckled, and put Marco down.

Reiner knew, everyone at the table knew, except Marco.

I'm sure you can guess what they knew.

It happened over Xbox live a week before.

"CONNIE YOU TOLD THEM?!" I paused the game in my rage.

"Woah woah woah, you never said that I couldn't tell them-"

"But it was implied!"

"Hey man," Reiner cut into the shouting match. "It's fine, I mean-"

"IT ISN'T FINE!"

"-We kind of knew anyway. Wasn't that hard to tell when you were drooling all over him at the table," he laughed whole heartedly "You even let him hug you!"

"Yeah, I've never seen Jean hug anybody before." Bertholdt chipped in, through Reiner's speaker.

"It's not hugging! He just likes putting his arm around my shoulder. He's affectionate, that's all."

"But you like it, don't you?"

I rolled my eyes, even though they couldn't see me. Thank god for that. I was blushing like a schoolgirl. "That still doesn't make it a-"

"And you're always talking to him at the table, you barely start a conversation with us anymore!" Connie pretended to sob, screeching through the speaker. "You're happily in love in your own little world that you've neglected reality! You've neglected your BELOVED FRIENDS!"

"Jesus, Connie, that's fucking loud!" I complained.

"You're kept on your toes though, eh Jean? Trying to get him to remember and trying to bag a homophobe as a boyfriend? Must be tough." Reiner whistled in mock sympathy.

The thing. #MakeMarcoRemember2k13. "I forgot to do the first one."

The journey to the away game at Rose Academy. Well. How to put it into words…

Erwin drove a white minivan, with Levi in shotgun because while Erwin was away with his mom, Levi had to "look after these shit stains so that they don't fuck up the hotel". He wasn't happy. From what I saw in the second seat behind him, he was ignoring Erwin. In front of me, Connie sat clutching his stomach for dear life.

"I'm going to die," he wailed. "You can't open the windows of this thing! I am literally going to be sick at any moment!" A bag was thrusted into his hands by a glowering Levi, and he quickly shut up, sucking on a bottle of water like a baby.

Somehow, I managed to get Marco to sit beside me. Okay, maybe minus the somehow. We were like, "best-ies" by this point, as I may have mentioned before during the Xbox conversation *cough* and he smiled a lot more now.

He wasn't as grumpy. He was nice to everyone at our table, and sure enough, it was just like how it used to be, with him taking the stage with his awesome stories while I worked beside him, putting in a few jokes here and there.

Marco may not have been AS grumpy, but he still was, to some extent.

"Jean, I can't even fit my feet on the ground! What the hell did you pack in your bag?!" he squirmed in his seat with his seat belt hugging his chest, trying to kick my bulging bag over to my side of the floor. It didn't. It refused to move like a fat cat in front of the fire.

Eventually, he gave up and got out his seat, rocking from side to side in the moving van as he went to sit beside Connie.

"Marco, I'm hurt." I pouted, peering over his chair to look at his hair. Touch the hair, Jean, it's too pretty to resist…

Eleven other guys occupied the van. My team. My glorious team of Wildcats. They stunk like too much deodorant and fart.

In the back row-the longest one with three seats-Reiner was with two other guys, Yong Kee (he once called me Horseface, so I called him Donkey. We don't speak nowadays) and Archie, a senior who picked on me for being a freshman until I made him run laps in club.

"Your ass is mine, son." was the message. He got the drift and didn't make fun of me again. In fact, I think we may have created a truce. Good times, good times.

On my left were twin brothers in their Junior year, Percy and Bill, Bill being short for William. I think they're English? Either that, or they just really like talking in god awful English accents. Like, were they from Oxford or Yorkshire? Make up your mind, guys. They got along with Connie really well.

Behind the Erwin's seat, Sam was by himself, seeing as he didn't try to make friends with the team. Yeah, you know his story. Although I think it should be mentioned that prior to the game, he'd asked several times to leave the club, and he was told no, not unless he got a substitute. I guess he never got that substitute. At least he still worked hard, even if he avoided me during club.

And last but not least; behind me were Timmy and Shaun. They were best friends and in my year group. I'm disappointed to say this, but they didn't look like sheep. But sometimes they'd wear woolly hats. I told them they were wearing their family, and they glared at me. They were big and scary, more so than Reiner, considering they were seniors, so I'd laughed weakly and ran away after that. Reiner was friends with them. Figures.

Oh, and Connie, Marco and I. We were also on the team. Duh.

I was just humming to myself, along to the radio that had some damn fine tunes playing at this hour, seeing as at this time, everyone was supposed to be getting up and going to work and stuff. (7am! We had to leave the school at 7am just to get to Rose Academy by 1 in the afternoon! Trost was truly in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE)

Connie was asleep, as he usually was during long trips because of his travel sickness (didums) and Marco was looking out the window in boredom, because he'd forgotten his headphones and was stuck listening to the radio like I was doing.

I'd thought "hey! Maybe we could scat sing and make up our own music!" But nobody went with my idea. I was so, so hurt. And also bored, very bored since I also didn't have my music either, and everyone else was being boring fucks and not doing anything worth mentioning.

We couldn't look back on this journey and be like "Wow that was the best ride I've ever gone on!"

50 Cent came on, "Best Friend" was playing and soon, his and Olivia's crooning voices filled the van. In case you haven't heard the song, the title does not match the song.

At least, I'm pretty sure that what is implied in the lyrics "If we get past the phone games we'll be fuckin'" is not something that even "Best Friends" would do together. I have Marco, I would know, goddamnit.

I slid my hand into Marco's hair, tugging sharply at black locks just as the song played the right lyrics. "Do it like the dogs do it and pull on your hair." I whispered into his ear, I knelt on my chair to get closer to him, singing along with the lyrics and giggling.

He swatted my straying hand away with a bright red face, flushing so hard that even his freckles were blocked out by the color and told me to "fuck off, Jean!". In a high pitched squeal.

Wait.

I recognized that breathing pattern.

I did it when I wanted an inappropriate boner to calm down.

I found myself coughing an apology, slouching deep down into the depths of my chair as I stared at the back of his with my eyes bulging out their sockets. My face burned from shock and excitement. After a while, his breathing went back to normal, the song changed, and we didn't speak for the rest of the journey.

Well fuck me.


	17. Chapter 17

Within two weeks, I managed to learn Marco's life story. There's not actually much to it, though I can't say I'm disappointed. It's better than the drama and tragedy of our previous lives. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have experienced anything awful this time around.

His dad's a doctor, like he told Claudia, and his mom's the "stay at home" sort of mom. He was born in Belgium, moved here to Trost when he was six, but he insists that he's Canadian because his mom's entire family is Canadian. I don't understand that at all.

Why would you think you're Canadian if you've never even lived in Canada?

When I asked him that, he said a) Shut the fuck up and b) It was because he grew up with his mom's Canadian customs, and that therefore made him Canadian (Although last time I checked, putting maple syrup on my pancakes didn't make me uberly polite and favor moose and red squirrels).

I said that he grew up with his dad's Belgian tendencies, so that made him more Belgian, and he just told me to shut up. He liked telling me to shut up. I learnt not to listen to him when he did that, and it's a lesson I'm glad I taught myself.

His face when he became annoyed was still priceless, so I made sure to annoy him at least two times a day. Nothing major, of course; I don't want him to break down in front of me like he almost did that time when we watched Glee. (We don't talk about that time, though I kept trying to apologise for a few days after. He insisted we were "even", so I eventually dropped it.)

Marco spent every single lunch with us after that time he came over by himself. He sat beside me, looking as though he'd been there all his life and I couldn't really find anything wrong with that, because it felt right to have him there, beside me on that bench. And when he reached to put an arm around my shoulders, I didn't mind it. In fact, I leaned into his touch. Didn't mind it, not in the least.

I thought I would mind it, considering I don't like to be touched, but somehow Marco was an exception. Then again, he always had been…

I don't even think it had anything to do with the fact I like him (I'm pretty sure I didn't like him before either), I just… he's really soft, okay? Soft bodies are the best to snuggle into.

Though his abs are pretty damn hard.

So is my dick when I catch a glance of them in the changing room.

Well, not really. It takes more than that to get me hard, but still. There's always a tingling in that area when I see his muscled stomach.

But yeah, he's good. We're good. Everything's good. He talks to Reiner, Bertholdt and Sasha but not Connie. I find that really, really ironic considering Connie's one of the only straight people at our table… Though for some reason that the Con-Man wouldn't tell me, Connie doesn't like him either, so it's not as if they're bothering to get into each other's good books. Why the hell not? I don't know. Maybe it's because Connie was mad he hurt me and Marco didn't like his attitude because of it. Yeah. That was probably it.

Marco smiled more, that's for sure. I know this, because I kept smiling more too and Connie and co. kept teasing me about it over Xbox live. It's a coincidence, I'm telling you!

We ended up telling Marco that the ritual thing was just a joke, and he didn't even get mad. Or well, he might have done, but in the "I'm smiling because this is scarier than my glare" way. He pulled off that look very, very well.

Then again, he pulled off most things very well, like that time last week when we got told off for loitering in the stairwell (I don't even know why we were not allowed in there. Maybe it's because they thought we'd chuck trash everywhere?). Marco started bawling his eyes out and pretended to be spilling his guts to me about how he just got dumped, and the teacher pretty much ran away.

I asked him if he'd ever actually been dumped and he said yes, and that his break up with Juliet during his middle school play was a sensitive topic for him. I'm going to assume he was joking about being Romeo, because he also mentioned at one point that he'd never had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, but I think that goes without saying.

All of this; and we still hadn't hung out outside of school or club.

I couldn't go to his work anymore… Though I'd thought about lingering around after his work hours so I could go home with him. Or rather, he would walk ahead, being grumpy, and I'd annoy him from afar.

The only time I had went out with friends since starting high school was with the bitch trio, two times to James' and then Connor's house, and also the one time they came over to my house, and Marco's visit too. First, only and last time, I should add. There was also that time I went over to Connie's to cry and have dinner, but I didn't go back to his house after that.

Mom said she thought the basketball game would be good for me since I'd be around people more, even after the game, and could socialize (ha). I doubted it.

The white mini van parked in the bleak hotel parking lot. I sort of wished it hadn't.

I grimaced as I looked out the window to see dark clouds overhead and the building we were destined to sleep in. The rest of the team trickled out the van to stand in a group on the sidewalk.

"… This isn't a hotel."

"Ah," Erwin said from his driver's seat, still collecting his things. "That's because it's a hostel, and they're different."

"Because they're crappier?"

"Because they're for poor students and tourists. Homeless people live there too."

… Save me.

When everyone was ready and Levi had finally found his cleaning stuff from the van interior, giving us a dinky bottle of hand sanitizer each (I don't even know, apparently it would prevent sickness from spreading?) we made our way to the square, grey building that loomed over us. I squinted up at the "hostel", feeling a bit "hostile" (I'm brilliant, aren't I) since Marco and I hadn't spoken for a good few hours since being on the van, and I'd had to suffer hours upon hours with nothing to do.

This game had better be worth all the goddamn trouble.

Speaking of which; it was one in the afternoon and the game was at four o'clock. Plenty of time to waste. Aha. Not according to Erwin.

Three of us got given room cards to be in charge of for our group; Me, Timmy and Donkey. We got told to go up to our rooms, shower because we all reeked from being on the bus for so long, get changed, then get our asses downstairs for strategy talk then a warm up.

Challenge accepted.

When we found our room, I opened the black door to our room to reveal a white interior (now doesn't this feel familiar? Well, it would, but this was actually a lot less glossy and expensive than my house). And just as I predicted: I was sharing a room with Marco. Reiner and Connie too, yes, but Marco.

Sharing a room with Marco.

I could sleep talk, pretend that I was saying his name in my sleep so that he'd go over to my bed, (there were two bunk beds, yay, enjoy my bland enthusiasm) lean over my sleeping body and kiss me, only, I'd wake up and kiss him back…

Or well, I'd like that, but something felt… a little off between me and Marco. Ever since I'd heard him, um, breath weirdly in the van, I couldn't look at him without going bright red so I stopped trying to look at him at all. Which was surprisingly harder than I thought, because my eyes tended to glance over to him when my mind got bored. Or just any time at all, really.

I had to avoid him to keep him out my viewing range and stuck beside Connie, who looked oddly smug for someone with travel sickness.

I couldn't concentrate during our strategy talk in the hostel's meeting room, and my head was pounding during the warm up, so much so that I got called off to the side by Erwin.

"Hey, Jean, what's up? You're looking really pale." I waited for him to tell me not to bring down the team along with my mood, but he never did. I shrugged in reply.

"Aw, come on Jean," he pouted (cough-manchild-cough) "I might be your coach, but you can still talk to me when you've got things on your mind."

I tilted my head, contemplating telling him something that had been bothering me, something completely unrelated to Marco and homework troubles, which was probably what he was expecting from me. Although, change the "Marco" part for girl troubles, since I'm pretty sure Erwin still thought I was straight. Unless Reiner had gossiped to him…

I looked back at the team. Levi was yelling at them in the middle of the field, sighing tiredly as they ran laps on the grassy field behind the hostel. The sky was still grey above us; threatening to send a downpour onto our training. Luckily for us, the game would be indoors. Though we didn't need one of our guys catching a cold, especially with no substitute players at our disposal.

Not taking my eyes off the team, I said, "I don't think I'm fit to be captain, Coach."

From the corner of my eye, I could see Erwin frowning with his big blonde eyebrows in confusion. "But you're a brilliant player, Jean, and you-"

"Having good skills doesn't mean I'm leader material. And I'm way too young for people to take me seriously." I snapped at him.

Seriously though, why a _freshman_? New meat in high school were never captains, we just didn't have enough experience. And on top of that I was completely, utterly useless at leading a team. Hell, half of the team hated me.

He sighed. Erwin guided me over to a park bench, motioning for me to sit beside him on the wooden chair. He bit his lip, as though fighting with himself internally. Oh god, please don't lecture me…

"There was a time when you were actually a _great_ leader, you know? And it wasn't when you had anything to do with basketball."

…What?

He clasped his hands, leaning forward as he spoke, staring down at the grass with stoic blue eyes. It kind of reminded me of my dad quietly giving me the sex talk when I was twelve…

"See, the thing is, is that I've had dreams about everyone, including you, and they were all the same kind of dreams; same faces, same places and so on. Now, I know you won't believe me, but I think we were all… _reincarnated._ I haven't told this to anyone else, Jean, so don't go thinking I'm crazy, just hear-"

I laughed. Throwing my head back, I full on laughed out loud, almost snorting from its intensity.

This, oh my god, this absolute _dolt._ His stupidity cheered me up without him even realizing it.

"I know that part Erwin, you might want to skip it."

He blinked at me owlishly. "How long have you known?"

"Ever since Jaeger told me, then I got my memories triggered… and that was like, two, three years ago?"

Erwin gasped, turning to face me and clutched my shoulders in his great big hands. "Who else knows?" His eyes sparkled with excitement like someone from one of Sasha's anime.

"Uh, pretty much everyone." With the exception of Marco, of course.

And that was how I, Jean Kirstein, made a grown man like Erwin Smith cry.

"Hey, it's not like I meant to make him cry. Jeez, I didn't realize he'd react that way. Stop looking at me like that."

I glared back at Levi, who had a bawling blonde wrapped around his waist. The rest of the team were glancing back at us nervously on the bench. Erwin may have had snot dribbling out his nose, onto Levi's shirt which he buried his face into.

Levi did noooot look happy.

I ended up not talking to Marco all day until we were in the game hall at Rose Academy.

"So, you ready?"

Marco smiled at me feebly.

Guy looked like he was going to shit his pants…

The hall was crowded, it was bigger than the one we had at Saint Maria's, and yet there were still people piling in at 3:48 pm. I'd recommended that Reiner be the one to be at the hit off, since I knew his height would give him an advantage at getting the ball when it was thrown upwards.

Reiner, that burly, blonde pug, was in the middle of the hall, facing the other team's members. His direct and closest opponent looked as though he knew exactly how this game was going to go. However I had faith in us, restored by Erwin's breakdown earlier, don't ask me why, but his manly tears gave me hope.

But when the whistle blew and the referee threw the basketball up into the air…

I realized that Reiner was terrible at jumping, since his strength lied in his power.

Rose Academy's team, the "Rose Rangers" had the ball on their side, and not for the first time that day, I realized how much of an unfair advantage they had.

Their players were huge, as in, they were all more or less the same height as Bert and for those who weren't that tall; they made up for the altitude in their freaking powerful jumps.

Their players were fast, while ours were still sluggish from the bus ride, especially our fastest player, Connie, since he'd been travel sick earlier on today, but had insisted on still playing. I should've told him to stay out, should've bargained with the other team, with Erwin, see if we could find another player to take his place-

Sam was playing half heartedly, not bothering to try and tackle any players that got the ball from his hands.

Marco was on the sidelines, trying to be support, even though I'd specifically told him to play offence since he was good at tackling and his dribbles were faster than Percy's, who was playing offence for some bizarre reason.

In fact… none of them were in position except for Reiner and Bill, and they weren't even much good in the position that they were in.

I shouted to the others as I ran up behind Rose's players, trying to find an opening, raising my tired arms, but their height range was well above me, so I couldn't even try to hit it out of place. The crowd that normally had me rising to the challenge didn't seem to have any effect on me today, even though there was so many of them, even though they were chanting a team name that wasn't my team's name.

My chest was aching thirty minutes into the game, and we had our break when the whistle blew.

I sat on the bench, ignoring everything around me as I wheezed. My legs trembled from the running, aching all over, sweat trickled down my spine, down my forehead, my shirt itched against my chest-

"Jean." I looked up to see Marco, no, Connie, standing in front of me. Was he going to give me the inspirational talk of Eren Jaeger's speciality?

"Even if we don't win, it's just a game, right?"

…So much for motivational speeches.

My shoulders slumped, and I knew I could've used a talk, right there and then, even if it was just Jaeger looking down at me and my pity party on the bench, screaming his ass off, telling me to get off mine and start getting pumped. The thought made me chuckle, and just then I remembered what I did for Marco, what I did whenever he couldn't be bothered to play during our weekend practice.

I would make him care about this game like I promised; I would make him and everyone else want to play, because I did not train a grumpy Bodt for weeks, just so everyone could take the game lightly.

I looked around the foreign changing room as I got into Jaeger's character, eyeing up my depressed team with no points on the board. I jumped up onto the bench I sat on, grinning maniacally.

"WHAT TEAM?!"

Everyone jumped at my voice, snapping their heads in my direction.

"Er, Wild…cats?" Bill said weakly, creasing his eyebrows underneath his brown bangs.

"Come on guys!" I banged on the nearest locker. "Just because it's only a game, doesn't mean that we can't… win it!"

They nodded slowly, turning to look away from me in embarrassment. Well there went my steam. I clambered down from the bench, onto the floor. I guess Jaeger had some sort of magic touch to his words, huh?

"Can't say I didn't try." I mumbled to myself, downing my bottle of water on the bench I sat on.

Yeah… We didn't win that game.

I let out a long groan when I finally made it back to that crappy hostel and landed on my bed with a thud.

The room wasn't actually too bad; just really plain and basic, like, they didn't even have a TV. There were white walls and two black bunk beds, with me on the bottom bunk, Marco on the top above me, Reiner had the top bunk on the other bed, and Connie…

Connie insisted on sleeping on the "gloriously cool floor" with a single blanket and three pillows.

"Why was everyone so _depressed_?" I wailed into my soft, white pillow. "I tried cheering everyone up, and nobody even listened. I'm so fucking terrible at being a captain!"

Connie lay on the floor on top of his beige blanket and threw an arm over his eyes, still breathing heavily. "It's just a game, Jean..."

"It's not!" I shouted. "It's _way_ more than just that! It's, it's…"

Images of basketball club in middle school flooded my mind. I'd spent day after day by myself in the gym hall, trying to get better, trying to jump higher so I could feel that exhilarating feeling that left me feeling like I was flying, yet at the same time trying to forget the past I had suddenly remembered, trying to drown the memories out from my mind with adrenaline and sweat and speed-

Basketball was… my escape. I'd say it was an escape from reality but really, it was just a better part of reality that I dove into, let myself get lost in, because I could let go of the majority of my responsibilities for something simple like a sport, one I only liked for the rush, and the intensity of a crowd watching my every move; cheering me on when I couldn't find the hope they gave me within myself.

"It's more than just a game." I finished lamely, not wanting the three other boys to know my inner thoughts. I left the room, going outside to get some fresh air and yet another bottle of water.

Not bothering to check whether I was alone in the hallway outside our room, I let myself sing.

_"Only when the good is unattainable, _

_do I feel like I'm losing myself… _

_And this deep secret, that hasn't come out yet, _

_is buried down deep with the rest…"_


	18. Chapter 18

Guess what singing sad songs does to me. Go on. Guess.

It makes me watch funny videos to try and cheer myself up.

You get those weirdoes that go about watching cat videos when they're sad, but I can't really imagine myself doing that. Well, I can now, and it's not pretty. I can just see myself in front of a computer screen with a fucking massive bucket of ice cream, clicking desperately at the mouse and laughing hysterically at stupid cats.

Yeah… I don't do that. Thank god. That was a pretty gruesome image right there.

Besides, it wasn't as though I had a computer with me. I mean, why would I. I was outside. All by myself. (Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely~) In this weird mini garden that was really just a patch of grass surrounded by the looming grey walls of the hotel.

Oh no, wait, I mean "hostel".

Fucking homeless people live in places like this. That's just not safe. Like, what if one of the hobos went up to our rooms and started going about asking for drugs, or food, or whatever hobos desire these days?

I don't think Connie would've given them his blanket. He seemed very protective of that blanket when we were chilling in our room. More like cooling down and trying to hide sweat stains in our clothes, even though we'd changed and showered.

But really, if they're homeless, then how can they afford to live in a hostel? Does the state pay for it? I demand my father's taxes back.

I stared at my phone screen as I lay down on the grass, which thankfully wasn't wet. Ah. Back in the days of going to Bodt's work and taking videos of glorious dancing tigers. He was fine dancer, I'll give him that. He should dance for me. Totally.

I smiled a bit when I heard my own voice in the video, laughing fondly at Marco as he tried not to fall over his own feet or topple onto the kids. So many damn kids. And to think he wanted an orphanage of them… We hadn't really spoken all day, apart from the game and in the morning… during the first part of the van ride….

Yeah, I was going to have to confront him about the boner thing. Otherwise I was just going to get weird ideas, maybe let myself go too far and tug on his hair every opportunity I got.

Oh. I should totally do that, actually. Annoying Marco was fun, but what about making him all hot and bothered…?

I'm so vanilla. I am, aren't I. There are worse things I could do to Marco. Or think about doing with him. But I'm pretty sure the worst I've ever thing I'd ever thought, starring him, was…. Oh, the séance, with the candles. Yeah. I may have jacked off to that. That was fun.

Pretty ironic, since I'd been crying over him a few minutes after the séance, but whatever. Do not question the mind of a teenage boy; it will disturb you and leave your mouth open with unspoken questions.

The video moved on since I last looked at it, seeing as I was daydreaming. I recognised a face within the crowd of kids… Claudia was there and… that little Izzy girl.

I bit my lip as I zoomed in. Wow, even in the cheesy disco lights she seemed really pale. How on earth didn't I notice how sick she looked? I actually still had the newspaper of us in my desk drawer at home. It was the first time I'd been in a newspaper, my first picture with Marco and... I kinda liked what the newspaper had said about us making her happy.

Suddenly there was a noise behind me, making me jump. And lo and behold: Levi and Marco came outside to join me on my patch of grass. I hid my phone in my jean pocket, before Marco could lecture me about not telling anyone about his work or steal my phone and delete my precious video. (My preciousss.)

Levi wrinkled his nose at me in distaste. Fuck you very much too, midget. Marco looked over at me, though I couldn't quite read his expression… He looked…Worried? Annoyed? Conflicted?

"Little Miss Marco decided to tattle on you being missing, though I don't see anything wrong with you being out here. Next time, tell your boyfriend where you're going so he doesn't distract me from organising my things." he shoved Marco in my direction to where I was half sitting up, staring at them curiously, a little annoyed because; fuck Levi and his tone.

Marco wasn't my boyfriend.

But hell yeah was I working on it.

Marco was abandoned by a huffing Levi, who slammed the door behind him as he went back inside. The drama queen's attempt failed though, because the door was stuck as he tried to pull it shut. He deserved it. He did. Marco gave an apologetic smile, shrugging his shoulders as he made his way over to my side. I lay back down, sighing when he lay beside me.

I grimaced, looking away from him and to the wall.

"Marco, I kind of want to be by myself right now."

He glanced at me, some of the grass poked him in the eye and he smiled a little more cheerfully. "Well, that's okay, because I'm Jean too."

I frowned at him. "…The fuck?"

"Yeah, you can be by yourself, with me, since I'm Jean too. All I need to do is copy your accent and your lisp." he finished the sentence in an overly exaggerated French accent and grinned, flashing pearly white teeth at me. And was that a slight lisp I heard in that last word? Better fucking not be.

I turned my head to look at him, peering into his brown colored eyes and trying to look angry. Maintaining eye contact had become easier, I think. A good thing too, because he was so pretty, made him worth looking at. My heart still liked to work over time though, and my body always became hot when he… looked at me… like that.

"I don't have a lisp." I said haughtily, tearing my gaze from his eyes. "I've heard a lisp before, like, I've heard people with braces, and I can say things like "sausages" perfectly fine."

His smile dropped. He shook his head with a serious expression.

"Not with one in your mouth, you can't."

His eyes widened as he pushed the inside of his cheek with his tongue and moved his fist beside his other cheek.

Blow job gesture. What the fuck.

I hid my face in my hands, spluttering. Did he just..? Oh my god I was such a bad influence on this poor boy. I had stolen his innocence with every one of my bad innuendos and terrible pick up lines.

No, no, I had taught him so WELL.

I snorted mid laugh. "Y-yeah, that sure sounds like something I would say." I shook my head. "Just don't ever say stuff like that or do that thing again. Ever."

Smiling smugly to himself, (he was good at acting out my character) Marco turned back to look up at the sky. It was dark enough for it to be night, but because of the piercing light of the lamp post a few feet away, I couldn't see any stars. Pity. I like stars.

Heat rose in my chest as I remembered the stars on his face, remembered tracing the Orion's Belt on Marco's freckles, Scorpio and the Big Dipper, too. My fingers itched to move, to touch his skin. How long would I have to wait before he'd fall asleep on me and I could do it again?

"Mmn, I'm your daemon, I think that's what it's called." he said, ignoring me.

"What, you mean the Phillip Pullman book?"

"Uh, I only watched the movie, but yeah. The one with Lia-"

"Lyra-"

"Yeah Lyra and the… The uh…"

My mind drew a blank. The name of the thing. "What's the name of the little compass thing she had?" I asked him, feeling my face contort in confusion.

"Eeh, the… athletic-o-metre?"

"The Othello-metre."

"Ari-o-metre? And by the way, I think you've been reading too much Shakespeare. Next thing you know you'll start talking in Elizabethan."

"Okay, we know there's definitely an o in the middle. And yes, I doth agree. I have read enough of that damned Othello script to call myself a Venetian soldier and make my merry way with Cassio to go and fetch a string of Strumpets from the Brothel."

He laughed out loud, and the sound echoed in the four walled garden. My skin prickled as I watched him come down from his chuckling high. It was times like these where I just… wanted to cuddle him, and feel his big goofy grin against my neck or underneath my fingertips.

"That just made my day." Wow. "Seriously." Wow. "You're from Old England, I can just tell."

"They actually spoke with an American accent, back then. They're our ancestors, after all." I told him, feeling smart. It's not a common feeling, I'll tell you that.

He nodded, still smiling. I almost caught myself thinking 'Does this idiot ever stop smiling?' then realized I was mistaking him for the Marco that remembered titans and how the manoeuvre gear chaffed our asses and stole meat with me and Sasha.

If I was thinking that, then maybe it meant he was closer to remembering, right? Something along those lines, anyway.

"Hmm, right, oh yeah. I actually came out here to talk with you."

I rolled my eyes, though his sudden seriousness had me worrying like a chick being told 'we have to talk'. That sentence was scary for reasons. Reasons, people. Reasons that I am sure you can guess.

"That's what we're doing right now."

"Ha fucking ha, I meant like, why you got up and left back there? The other guys were pretty worried…"

I scoffed at him. "I hardly doubt you came all the way here to tell me that."

He chewed his lip as he hesitated. "… That, well I just came down here to make sure you were okay. And… I didn't really feel comfortable without you there."

I turned myself onto my side, watching in bewildered fascination as he grew red. "Really now?"

"Uh huh. You gonna tell me why you left?"

"Hmm, only if you tell me why you got a boner on the van when I pulled your hair."

He snapped his head over to face me with a look of horror. "Eh?!"

"I mean, it sure sounded like you had a boner. You were breathing all weird."

He raised an eyebrow. Then his face smoothed out and he pouted a little, raising his eyebrows as if to say 'As you do, then… Not common, but whatever.'

"I've never had someone make me hard before."

My body fucking lit up on fire.

"WHAT?"

"Well, I've never had a girlfriend before, so I never get teased like that." he frowned, almost childishly. "But don't do it again. Don't push your gay tendencies onto me."

I rolled back over onto my back, gulping back a thick stream of saliva, repeating a mantra of ohmygodohmygod in my head.

There's one thing to think that he'd gotten a boner.

But him plain out admitting it?

F-fucking hell man.

Basically hearing the words 'you made me hard' was enough to set me on edge, in the horny teenager way. Holy fuck. I couldn't repress a shiver, one that tingled in my groin.

I coughed, trying to change the subject so he wouldn't try to look my way before it was too late. "So the reason I came out here…"

"Oh, you ready to talk about it now?" he said brightly, clearly glad I was changing the topic.

God, now I just wanted to tug his hair again. Even if it was just to piss him off. I didn't let myself look at him and stared at the light of the lamp post, trying to think of anything else but him. Though.. That was kinda hard when he was moving closer to me in the grass, making me cringe and shrink back as our shoulders brushed. Damn you and your affection, Bodt.

"Y-yeah, I just wanted to get out the room. Pretty upset about the game going so bad. You know. That sort of thing." I nodded to myself.

The was a pause as I waited for him to say something.

"…What, that's it? You're not going to make a speech and have a random mood swing where you start rambling?"

I snarled at him, pushing his shoulder away. "Heh, fuck you."

"Ah, there he is~ That cynical, mood swinging boy I know so well. I don't mind your PMS-ing, though." he clicked his shoes together, staring into space.

"Why not?" I asked him cautiously, irritated that he implied that I was on my "man period".

"Because you're my friend. And your grumpy side is actually pretty funny, even when you're not trying to be." he smiled again, though his face looked softer as he spoke, lowering his eyelids as he glanced at me.

I chuckled lightly, feeling my heart jump in my throat.

"Your friend, huh?"

I liked the sound of that, though Connie's words rang through my mind;

"_Maybe he'll start liking you more… but it might not be in that way, okay?"_

True, true, Connie. Though I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to keep this up.

I let out a big sigh. "You call me your grumpy friend. Well. At least you've stopped calling me "pony boy"."

"I might have to start again, seeing as you have horses in France at your granddad's place."

"… I'd rather that you don't."

I eventually wound up telling him about how annoyed I was about everyone not playing properly. He ended up wincing at the news, especially when my voice cracked, rubbing at his neck guiltily, telling me he'd try to meet my expectations next time.

A month…. And we'd come a long way from him calling me faggot to his friend.

When we made our way back to the room, it was around about seven o'clock at night, and I couldn't help but melt into the arm Marco had wrapped around my shoulder as we walked down the halls. I must've looked like the cat who got the milk.

We'd started talking about daemons again, and when I told him he'd be a rabbit, he told me I'd be a cat, and I couldn't really argue with that. He did for my choice of animal, getting all defensive because apparently rabbits are the devil's spawn.

Yes, Marco. That's exactly what you were… I'm glad you knew that.

I opened the door with my key card when we reached our room, and we were bombarded by party poppers and silly string that had me spitting and shouting, trying to untangle myself from Marco so I could escape.

"YO JEAN. Why'd you hide all the good stuff?!" Reiner raised his hands accusingly. Like, why would I do that, oh my god, WHY! How selfish of me!

"Because that shit was in my bag, assholes. Why the fuck did you raid my stuff?" I walked into the room, grabbing my bag off the floor and flopped onto my bed. Marco followed behind, sitting at the black chair and desk.

"Eh, well there was a weird noise coming from your bag, and for some reason…"

Connie held up two small instruments as he sat on his bed (his actual bed, the one with a mattress), opposite mine and Marco's.

"We found a keyboard stuck playing the c chord and a… My Little Pony tambourine?"

I chuckled. "I was being serious when I said we should make our own music."

Marco coughed.

"Marco, for fuck's sake, I'm not a mother-fucking Brony."

We all clambered onto the bus, Connie held the mini keyboard and I had my -Claudia's, actually- pretty pink tambourine. I like shiny things, what can I say. Erwin was back from visiting his mother, though I'm not sure why he had to see her in the first place, and everyone except me and my trio looked tired. As in, eyes with heavy grey bags beneath them, and the genreal "I'm going to punch loud noises in the metaphorical gut so shut the fuck up" look I normally wore in the morning.

Once Erwin started driving, with Levi slouching in the passenger, fumbling with his phone (if Erwin was a man child, Levi was still a teenager. Looked like one too. A Goth. But without the piercings and make up. Maybe an Emo, then?) I gave Reiner, Connie and Marco The Nod.

Reiner was at the back again, Connie was in the front (hopefully he wouldn't be sick, again, because fucking hell is Levi grouchy when he's confronted with vomit) and Marco; my beautiful Bodt; he was right beside me in his respectful chair, now able to sit there since all the cans of silly string and the instruments were gone from my bag.

Originally, it'd all been for if we won, you know, like a mini party. Because I'm so damn cheerful and optimistic like that.

Not.

I cleared my throat and smirked as Connie began playing the riff we'd practised. A low base. A very, very repetitive and distinguishable riff. I started in with the tambourine, shaking it and slapping it with my palm. I took a deep breath as I began the first verse.

"In the time of Chimpanzees, Connie was a monkey  
Game is in my veins, so I'm goin' to cut the flunkouts  
With the plastic orange balls, spray paint the back board  
Reiner falls for Bertholdt's pantyhose  
Kill the titans, put the humans in neutral  
Jaeger's still flamin' like a loser and his crew patrols him  
Marco's in Rio with a hole in his seat."

…

All four of us joined in for the chorus after Connie said in a rachet voice; "Yo, innit."

"_SOY SAUCE AND PROVE THEM WRONG; I'M A LOSER BABY, SO WHY DON'T YOU KILL ME-" _

Levi turned around and looked poor Connie dead in the eye, making him stumble across the electronic keys while Reiner died of laughter in the back seat where the others were staring at him like he'd just grown a second head.

We might not have had the most fun on the way there, but we had an AWESOME time for the way back.

Levi sat back in his seat, and he mumbled loud enough for me to hear, "You guys are way too fucking happy to be on the losing team. They should make an comedy about you idiots."

Aw yeah. Midnight rehearsals totally paid off.


	19. Chapter 19

2 months later~~~

"O.M.G. Mar-Mar."

"What."

I turned to him in astonishment, where he was sitting beside me on the wooden bench with the lunch time crew. "You're responding to your name. The one I christened you with."

Marco cleared his throat with a gargling cough. He croaked, "Yeah. I mean, you call me it all the time. Naturally, I'm bound to respond at some point. Now, I'm pretty sure you mentioned that this homework is for your next class today,"

He tapped an impatient finger onto the notebook in front of me with a stern look. "So you might want to get round to actually doing it, even if you also take Procrastination 101."

I let out a small chuckle. "Pro 101 is the best class, you should've taken it. It's awesome. We don't get homework because the teacher never gets around to handing it out. Or coming to class."

"Jean?"

"Uh huh?"

Marco looked like my mom during an argument. "Do your homework."

"Well, see, the thing is: I can't." I reasoned.

Connie nodded in my direction from where he sat opposite me and beside Sasha, who was trying to get a hangnail or something. Bert and Reiner seemed to be off school today. They must've found a new make-out spot since they got kicked out their last one. By me and Marco…

"You've got a pencil and paper, so yeah you can do it." he told me patronisingly.

Connie was also doing his own paper. He could eat my shit and learn from his own advice while doing so. "Don't make me go all Bob the Builder on you."

…I think he'd been watching too much TV with Claudia lately. I'm not sure how she went from High School Musical to Bob the Builder in the first place, to be honest. No… I think she started watching Dora the Explorer on Nick Jr, and Connie just kept watching the programme whenever she left him to play with her toys. I was beginning to think he only came to my house to sit and watch it with the excuse of a child being present.

I'll admit, I've done that. I may have done that for Toy Story 3. It was both the best and worst decision of my life.

I continued to protest. "I don't have the knowledge. It went into one ear and out the other."

Marco sighed, making his freckled face relax as his chest deflated underneath his superman t-shirt. It was November. How was he not freezing his balls off? He was already suffering a cold, so apparently he would just never learn.

Yeah, it turns out that Marco was actually a huge Marvel fan. Had all the comic books and some figurines like a little nerd, or so he'd told me. Convincing him that it was "just like a comic", Sasha managed to get him to read manga; he ran halfway round the school when she showed him yaoi one lunch time.

When I'd found him, he looked more like someone who'd just found out how sex worked rather than traumatized. I took it to be a good sign that he wasn't crying.

I may have kept referring to him as Marco-kun for a few days afterwards… Ah, those were the days.

Marco twitched his lips as he thought. He looked so much like a damn rabbit because his freckles twitched too, like whiskers and he just needed to accept his inner animal-

"Why don't you get a tutor then?"

"What, for one subject?" I scoffed. "That'd be-"

"Stupid? You know, I'm pretty sure that 'stupid' is one of the only three words you use to describe, like, anything." Sasha rolled her eyes at me across the table, wisely wrapped up in a thick, brown sweater.

"Excuse you, there's an extra, when I'm describing me."

"Weird?" Connie piped up.

"-No, that's one of the three words." Sasha explained.

"Dumb?" … That asshole Marco.

"-Yet again another one."

"For your information, I was about to say 'a waste of money'. And I think the word you're looking for is…" I paused for effect rising my palms up slowly like I was some kind of god lifting the world in his hands. i"Fan-dabby-dosey."i I laughed at their pained expressions.

"Okay, that's not even a word. We really need to get someone to tutor you." Marco shook his head in dismay, hiding half his face from me with a hand on his temple.

I clapped my hands. "I just had this brilliant idea. You could be that tutor, Bodt. Or should I say, Bodt-Sensei?" I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

… I felt like I had just proposed to him or something with the way he turned bright red under his black bangs and the dumb duo gawked at me.

Connie frowned slightly as he said, "You sure only Bodt's good enough to tutor you? I mean, I got-"

"A 'C' in the midterm test last time? Your report card was awful, Connie, no offence. And Sasha got to drop out of English lit. You lucky bitch." I narrowed my eyes at her.

Marco tilted his head at me, pouting slightly in a way that had me wishing I could just bite his bottom lip. Maybe lick it. Nibble it while had a hand wrapped around his-

"Do I get a say in this?" His eyebrows creased, and I knew he was trying to get out of this one with puppy dog eyes. It would work, if I wasn't careful. It had worked that one time when I let him go to work early instead of doing basketball practice on a Saturday.

I made that bastard run five extra laps during club the following Monday.

"You did get a say. You basically offered yourself to me, Mr. Freckled Saint. Oh, and Congratulations on your new student. He's an absolute pleasure to teach."

I was going to Marco's house. Shit. Like, holy shit. I hadn't been round to his house. I knew where he lived, I'd just never been inside.

I knew a good few things about Marco, like his phone number and his mostly closeted batman obsession and the fact that he had a freckle on his ear that he didn't know about, and I'll give you a long list of the crazy ideas he's come to me with, texting me in the middle of the night to tell me he was going to call his orphanage "Bodt's Babes" (I told him no. Just, no.)

But the inside of his house (or what he looked like naked or horny? Well, I knew the sounds of the second one…)?

Nope. Not a clue.

I was only going to go for studying, but you know. There could be baby pictures. Even during the titan war, I'd never seen his baby pictures, or any at all, because we hadn't had the technology. Although he mentioned having had a very big head at one point. Ha. I could imagine. He was practically a rectangular brick with freckles. I was looking forward to baby pictures.

The paper I never handed in was "to be done for tomorrow", as I'd been told by the lazy ass English lit teacher. I say lazy, but that's just because it's genuinely true. I actually think he's one of the better teachers, and he said in my report card that I was "conscientious" and "full of wonderful ideas".

He had me at 'wonderful'. Plus he has relatively nice, non greasy hair. It's not often that an older male teacher even has hair. Most of them wear toupees or use that hair grow thing.

Marco walked beside me on our way home after Basketball club. In two months, a lot of things had happened. We found out that he was really good at tackling, and when he was under a time pressure; he could shoot hoops like a rabbit jumping into a hole with a bullet skimming its ass.

When he was able to do a long shot across the hall, Connie just shook his head in annoyance and told me Marco was showing off for me. I'd been about to dismiss the thought. Marco didn't live to please anyone. But then I noticed him looking at me every time he made a good shot or pass. In the "notice me senpai!" kind of looking at me. Or so Connie said.

I shook my head to myself and Marco frowned at me in confusion.

"Mar-Mar. You need to accept that you're a rabbit."

(That had me thinking of his goofy impression of Lenny: "Tell me about the rabbits, George!" in THE most southern accent I'd ever heard. He does do voices like he said. Really well I might add. But the question is, what kind of voice will he have in bed, after a long night of pounding or being pounded into- Yeah I wasn't sure who was topping yet. We'd come to an agreement when the time came)

He rolled his eyes at me. "Just because I fell asleep that one time during break on the stairwell and you drew whiskers on me with your mom's eyeliner-"

"Looked pretty damn cute too-"

"-Doesn't mean that I'm a dumb rabbit." he crossed his arms, though I didn't miss the redness in his cheeks as I teased him.

During the two months, I had also shown him a couple of crappy drawings of the manoeuvre gear that I'd drawn, using the memory of my old body as a model. He mentioned that he had a scar-like birthmark on his upper thigh upon seeing the drawing. When I took a look at it after club-trying not to swoon at our closeness and a fact I realized right there and then was that leg hair could sometimes be extremely attractive-it was in the same place a buckle on the strap had grazed his leg, back then.

When I'd asked him if he had any other scars or sensitive bits, he mentioned that when he woke up in the morning, he couldn't feel his arm and that his face felt like he'd been slapped with a lob of metal. The right side of his face, that is.

I… didn't have the heart or the guts to explain that part.

We continued to shuffle along, up to the stop lights we always went by, though they seemed to be broken because of the re-wiring, according to the big ass sign beside the butt crack sitting on the sidewalk, anyway.

"Oh no, they're off." Marco gaped at me in mock-horror.

I grinned at him. "We should… iturn them oni."

I waggled my eyebrows at him as he grinned, letting his tongue peep out of his front teeth like a cute sleeping cat.

"…You get the whips and I'll get the bondage." he confirmed the plan with a curt nod.

"Aw man, I wanted to read out the homo-erotica!"

Marco punched my shoulder, and marched on ahead of me. Only this time, he let me catch up to him and we went back to peaceful silence and some small talk.

A beautiful scene, isn't it? Two teenage boys walking and talking… One madly in love without the other ever knowing…ever…

Talk about a tragedy just waiting to happen.

I missed reading Shakespeare. But then again, my feud with 'Of Mice and Men' had allowed me a study date… A study "not date", as Marco called it. And he had done. Many times, because Connie had been teasing him for the rest of the afternoon.

I don't think it helped his case that the yaoi that Sasha had shown him had been about a student tutor and his classmate…

Marco's mom looked like Mina. Pigtails and all. I almost fell over my own feet when I walked into the Bodt residence, though I like to think I came off as charming.

She bustled up to me wearing a very mom-like apron while I was trying to take in the house and everything around me.

Fucking big house. Like, I knew his dad was a doctor, but this big a house? Wow. And Marco was an only child, so I don't even get why they needed so much space. It had CCTV cameras, and you could see what was going on outside with the TV in the kitchen, even though the entire place looked Victorian. There were plush, dark red carpets, eight feet walls, antiques piled onto sand colored shelves.

And they had a mother-fucking grandfather clock. Who the hell even has those?!

"Marco can I take pictures of your house? I feel like I'm in a museum."

The Mina-look-alike giggled so that it sounded like a little bell, and it was then that I realized; a) her nose was more button nose like than Mina's, and her face was rounder; so she was obviously not Mina b) she had a pretty badass tan c) She had the most adorable laugh and freckles; just like Marco. Only, her laugh was more high pitched and his freckles were cooler than hers.

The momma Bodt stuck out her hand for me to shake with glittering hazel eyes. "Hello, I'm Lani." Her eyes crinkled at the sides, just like Marco's did.

Damn, her accent was strong; full blown Canadian moose loving was obviously in her genes. There weren't any moose heads in the house though, at least… not from what I could see. "And this place is Bert's great grandparent's house, they had a lot of lovely antiques to give us!"

I shrugged nervously, looking down at my feet. "… You have a cute personality."

My eyes widened as I flushed and waved my hands frantically in an attempt to reverse time. (It was not a successful attempt)

"Wait no! Sorry! I mean, uh, my name's Jean! Sorry!"

She laughed loudly (as if I wasn't fucking embarrassed enough) and guided me by my tensing shoulders to the living room. "Black or white Jean?"

I frowned for a good minute before answering her sunny facial expression. "White?"

"Brilliant!" Right now, she reminded me of Hanji receiving new Titan merchandise. Only, Lani seemed a little more sane. Or maybe that was just her guise…

"Marco~ you get the black tux at the wedding! I'm giving you both my blessing!"

"MOM!"

"You love me really, darling, you know you do." she chuckled, allowing me to sit on the sofa. "And if you don't marry him, then I'm certainly in the queue."

The living room… it was the complete opposite of mine, with random shit on a bookshelf -where there could have been photos that possibly had a destiny to be checked out by me- ranging from old medals to… an old fork, by the look of it.

The room was big too, like the rest of the house, and I found myself flopping into the flowery fabric sofa as though it were my own bed. Well, more politely, I guess. But still, this place made me feel... Like how I usually felt by Marco's side, I guess. At home.

I felt a rush of heat surge through my stomach when Marco came into the room with two cups of juice. It was a sight I could get used to. When he smiled down at me, I looked up at him, definitely feeling a little love-struck.

"When we get married I wanna live here." I mumbled as he sat down beside me and moved to stroke his hair before he swatted me away.

"Pfft, no. We're moving to Canada. I need to go on a pilgrimage to my home country."

I sighed happily and put my hands behind my head, sitting back onto the sofa. "Why go on a pilgrimage when you'll have me as a husband?"

"No, that's why I'll go. I'll abandon you with all the rebels in Toronto and go someplace very, very far away. But still in Canada. I'll send you a picture of me and a moose when I get as far away as I can."

Lani chirped at us from the kitchen. "Marco, do you want an ice sculpture at the wedding? I think a Cupid sculpture would be a good choice-"

"Mom, I was joking! We're not getting married." He frowned down at the coffee table in front of us, one side of his mouth curved upwards like he was trying not to smile. "We're still underage, after all."

My eyes glazed over as I rested a cheek in my hand when I leaned forward. "… Not in Wisconsin. We're totally legal there."

Marco raided my bag for my papers. "Britain, too. You can get married at sixteen there."

"Ah, yeah. But I'd still be underage."

He snapped his head to me, then creased his eyebrows in adoration and his brown eyes lit up. "You're still fifteen? Oh my god, that's so cute- I mean, you're so young!"

He's what, a year older than me? Get over yourself Bodt. Wait-

He froze for a second, staring at me, then fumbled about with the papers upon seeing my face. My face, which I like to believe hadn't gone bright red and that my eyes hadn't been going all goo-goo at him.

Yeah, that's what I like to believe. Me..? Cute? Maybe… but only for him.

When Marco took a toilet break after a college worthy lecture about symbolism and themes, I headed straight to the glossy, dark brown bookshelf with all the random junk just waiting to be devoured by my eyes.

A lot of it seemed to be ornamental things; there was an Egyptian cat ornament, candles, pottery, old school certificates, really old to do lists, birthday cards… There were also some drawers, so I decided to be nosy.

I looked around, making sure that no-one was around, thankful that the toilet still hadn't flushed, I dived into the drawer in the hope of finding some sort of photo album.

There were bills in one, and when I tried the one next to it, it felt really empty. I opened it, only to find a single book in the drawer. It was grey colored and covered in leather.

I picked up the book, completely curious by now, although I had to hope that it wasn't Lani's or his dad's-who I think was called Bert, which was short for Hubert.

It felt light, as though it didn't have the weight of ink on it, but after taking a glance at the first yellowing page made me realize that this wasn't the case.

In fact, there a good few pages of writing. All of them in Marco's slanted and spiky writing as I saw as I quickly fanned through them. Just to be sure, I checked the first page, a blank one like books normally have, and sure enough; it had Marco's name and the year 2010. That would've been… when Marco was thirteen?

I turned to the first page and began reading.

"_iI've been having weird dreams lately. Dreams that make me feel sick and see things like monsters, so I asked dad to buy me a book to write them into, and I told him I'd need him to hide this book when I was done writing. Preferably, he'd need to burn it._

_There was a family I dreamed of, and they looked like me. Except… they were not my family, because my family doesn't include three little girls and two boys, and my mom isn't called Julie Bodt._

_And my father isn't missing in action._

_Those bits were fuzzy in the dreams, and were relatively happy, but when I felt older in the dream world, things started becoming a bit clearer._

_At one point, there was a man called Coach Shadis. There were thousands of people all in rows, all of us around about thirteen years old. At least, I think that's how old I was. I must've been older right? Nobody goes into the military at that age. _

_There were drills. There were fights between a boy called Eren and another called Jean._

_Eren was the talking type, and he liked to tell everyone about how he thought everyone should join the Survey Corps, how we shouldn't live in the "walls" like the titans' livestock. _

_The titans looked like giant, muscled people. With no skin. I shuddered at the thought, and yet we all seemed to be learning about them, how to fight them, because they ate us all for no reason._

_The boy Jean, the one that Eren fought with on a daily basis, I ended up making friends with him, it seemed. He was a loudmouth, he was weak, and he saw himself as a coward. He was bull-headed and impulsive and sarcastic and cynical and refused to listen to orders and never offered to help me clean the toilets. _

_But he was… sweet at times. Like when he bought me food from the market when I couldn't afford it, and got me breakfast in bed when I was sick and he seemed really interested in my life, even when it didn't include things about him or were really dumb and trivial. One night I found him crying on the porch and he told me everything that was stressing him out. _

_I could imagine he would be stressed, the army does that to you at thirteen, no, I'm pretty sure Jean was twelve at the time. That… the fact he was so young, that all of us were just children, that blew me out the water. They should've been at school, thinking about their dreams and being with friends… _

_Not learning how to fight to the death with people they barely knew, and might not get the chance to ever know._

_When I hugged him, I found myself asking why I let myself get so close to this guy, this boy that clearly knew, or so he thought, that he would never make it. _

_One night in the dream, I finally came to understand. _

_When we were cleaning up our "gear" and sitting -well, I was sitting, I don't know what the hell he was doing, being all crossed legged like a girl- I looked up to him, telling him about how good he'd be as a leader, thinking about how beautiful he was, how I helped him and he helped me._

_Thinking about… the times I'd felt him tracing patterns over my face, breathing onto my skin in a way that made my heart go crazy and my head spin and my breathing hitch, making me touch my face in the places he'd gone over with giddiness after he crawled back to his bed, thankfully a little more at ease. _

_But I'd never tell him that I was awake because Jean seemed like the kind of person to need to be alone when he was sad, even though he relied on support to motivate him, even though I wanted to touch him too and hug him and kiss him and tell him that he should really let me help with his nightmares-_

_His fingers would be delicate, swirling pads against the apple of my red cheeks in the middle of the night, much unlike the strong grip he had when he was gripping onto his swords during training, and his smile would gleam from the sunlight each time he smiled because he was actually one hell of a flirt. And a show off. _

_Even though he was a total dork, I found myself smiling at his behaviour, the way he always sang without knowing it when we were doing chores and how he always had to be entertained like my little brothers and sisters at home._

_When we were cleaning our gear and the flashbacks began, I looked up at him, smiling, even though I could feel tears stinging my eyes that I blamed on the bad lighting in the room. My throat clogged up halfway through because I got so emotional, but I don't think he noticed. _

_He looked so touched, so surprised, when I finally got to tell him how good he'd be in the future. In _our_ future in the military police._

_You get the people that you need to spell things out for, otherwise you end up making all sorts of things confusing, especially for someone as sensitive as him._

_I wanted to, with every ounce of my pining, flustered heart and with the fact that he really didn't need to be so insecure when he had this much potential, I really wanted to just tell him that I-"i _

It ended. The, the writing just _stopped _in the middle of the page just as it was getting almost too messy to read. It couldn't just end like that, w-with too many questions that had me frozen on the spot, shaking like a leaf as I stared at the book in my hands.

There was a creak on the floorboards of the living room, just by the door. I gasped and spun round.


	20. Chapter 20

"Marco-" I said when I heard the creaking floorboards by the door. But the thing is, it couldn't have been him, because the toilet had just flushed.

And Marco, the last time I remembered, had freckles.

My mind was blank. I couldn't process anything. Only the fact that hey, there was a guy by the door that looked just like Marco, maybe a bit older looking. And I was shaking so badly I thought it was the floor that was vibrating beneath me.

The figure grew closer and I let myself be slowly dragged by my arm out of the living room, into the kitchen, still clutching onto the book in my hand as I stumbled along.

There was a hardness beneath me, a chair. The man moved his hands from grabbing my wrist to holding my shoulders and looked down at me from where he stood.

My eyes began to sting when I realized just how much he looked like Marco, even without freckles. He had the same brown eyes and they were looking at me in concern, genuine concern like the Marco from before had had. I almost wanted to hug him.

His hair was black, but in a side parting, and he was wearing squared glasses. He sighed sadly and I gulped with a dry throat, having no idea what was going to happen.

Wood scraped against the tiles as he dragged a chair to sit opposite me. "I'm Hubert, Marco's dad. Are you his friend?"

My free hand trembled in my lap. "Not anymore."

His eyebrows creased in alarm and he leaned forward. "Why? Was it because you read that book?" His voice, obviously Belgian accented, broke at the end of his sentence.

I didn't know what to tell him. Hell, I wasn't sure what I should tell myself. I just knew I couldn't be Marco's friend anymore. My throat swelled, making my breathing become more shallow and my chest heave unevenly. I stared blankly into my hands which I used to hide my face.

"H-he lied, he said he didn't remember." I felt my face grimace, almost allowing for the tears to make way. "And he knew that I traced his freckles, he never told me how he… and he never did, and-"

It chorused in my head, the last paragraph of the diary entry before it was cut off; "I wanted to, with every ounce of my pining, flustered heart… I really wanted to tell him that I-"

If the end of the diary was anything to go by, Marco had implied that he was in _love_ with me.

"W-why does he act so d-differently from before?" I asked myself, choking on the words.

I whispered "Why did he lie? Why the hell did he never tell me? I'm so fucking _obviously_ in love with him too!"

I realized what I'd just admitted as I felt tears crawling down my cheeks, onto my palms that made my words echo as I talked into them. Something in me broke.

Gasping, I collapsed into an emotional brick wall and sobbed silently, because I've never been one to howl, as much as I would have loved to at this point.

The older man hesitantly started patting my back, quietly calling for Lani to keep Marco in the living room so he couldn't hear me in here. He rubbed small circles in my shoulder blades just where it felt warmest, like a father.

Crushes are only supposed to be painful when they don't like you back, not when they return-returned- the feeling! I must've been in over my head, then. Way, way over my own head.

Something was wrong with me. I shouldn't have been shaking like this, I shouldn't have been letting myself cry in front of the guy's dad like I was a patient with stupid problems.

I wanted to scream, but fuck, I was as quiet as a mouse and I couldn't get any louder than that. It reminded me of when the nurse confronted me, ordering me to move on and grieve later. I'd been frozen on the spot, staring at Marco's body in absolute denial.

I'd been such a complete idiot for believing him this entire time.

I'm weak.

I'm _pathetic._

When I finally forced myself to stop the tears, after what felt like hours later, Hubert leaned back in his chair. But I was still hiding behind my hands, terrified that Marco had heard me in the other room, even though I said 'it' so quietly.

Hubert let go of me, and it wasn't awkward because he was a doctor, from what I remembered. This was nothing new to him. He dealt with idiots like me all the time. People who've received much worse news than I hope I ever will.

I wiped my eyes with my hands, looking up to see Hubert Bodt grimacing uneasily. Oh god, _please_ don't tell me he's a homophobe too. That should be the least of my worries right now.

"Alright son," he didn't know my name. I didn't want to tell him. He could probably guess anyway. "I can explain, assuming you know what the titan war was?"

I nodded, training my eyes on his shoulder so I didn't have to look at his pitiful expression anymore.

He took a deep breath as though he was preparing for the worst, though I was pretty sure I'd already encountered rock bottom, so nothing he said would make this any worse. I hoped.

He spoke clinically, "Marco repressed his memories, since the shock of remembering his trauma made him pass out when he wrote everything down. At least, that was how I found him when I went into his room that day.

He doesn't remember anything, not at all. I've asked him about it, and since he tells me, his father, that he doesn't, I don't think he's lying."

I was given a ride home in Hubert's car. I didn't pay attention to what it was. Back at the Bodt house, I'd heard Marco panicking, frantically asking why I'd been crying when he saw my puffed red face. Hubert gave him a pointed look, and it must've been effective, because Marco took a step back and let us pass. I never looked at his face. How could I have?

At one point in his life, Marco had remembered me.

But something had driven him to forget. Something had made him remember in the first place, but nobody seemed to know what it was.

After a short, awkward drive home, I nodded respectfully to Hubert from my porch, mumbling my thanks before he drove away. It was difficult to look at him for too long, otherwise I'd start thinking about Marco.

When I tried opening my front door, it was locked, so I had to use the spare key under the recycling box by the door to get in. I went straight to my room and used my phone to look up "repressed memories".

The screen showed the little box slowly pushing along the blue line on my Iphone. I began thinking while I waited for it to load, ignoring the message notification that popped up.

Marco had never lied, about the memories, at least.

The anger I'd felt earlier from thinking I was being lied to ended up disappearing when I remembered all the things he'd said in the diary.

He'd known that I had touched his face when I couldn't sleep, he'd never told me, and it had made him giddy. God, he'd even touched his face because it reminded him of my touch. My face heated up at the thought.

He smiled at how I acted. He knew that I sang without knowing it. He probably liked kids because of the sheer amount of siblings he'd had.

He'd wanted to touch me too.

Even back then, he thought I sat like a girl.

He knew I was a flirt. He believed I could be sweet. He thought I was beautiful.

Fuck, Bodt. That was cheesy. So cheesy that I wanted to bury my head into my pillows and just scream to scare away the butterflies in my stomach.

"Pining, flustered heart". Damn, if that wasn't poetic, then my last name was Jaeger. I wasn't going to be able to look at Marco in the eye ever again because those three words would ring in my head, and I'd definitely lose my cool.

The search results loaded, and I spent five hours looking through them, skipping dinner because there was no way I could face my family when I was like this.

Apparently a person could adapt an alternate personality, multiple personality disorder, to biologically hide the memories from the conscious mind.

Well. That explained why Marco acted differently. Holy shit. Multiple personalities. That's something from a movie.

Repressed memories made your childhood fuzzy, but even a vague feeling meant that whatever the event was had happened. Only a seriously traumatic incident could force a person to repress their memories.

Whatever had happened to Marco, it was something more traumatic for him than seeing someone he loved die.

Only something reminiscent of their trauma could allow them to remember; but showing them pictures and telling them what had happened wouldn't help them to remember at all.

For my P.E class and I, this had been the case for remembering our previous lives.

And chances were, if he ever did remember, the memories would destroy his mental health.

Marco would become psychologically damaged because he couldn't cope.

For once, I decided that I couldn't deal with this alone. I sneaked out the house, careful to not wake anyone or get caught, and called Connie to let him know that I was coming over.

I just hoped he'd let this be an exception to his 'don't come over when I'm sleeping' rule. Especially since it was the middle of the night. … Here's to hoping he was a night owl.


End file.
